""" Prologue"""

n 2755, City Admin and the Dome had been at a state of war for the last 5 years. A lot of the battles were never seen by most runners, most of them choosing to concentrate on their own personal battles with other runners or Factions.

The Twilight Guardian, for many years have been fighting the dictatorship rule of Lioon Reza in City Admin. The Twilight Guardian decided to form an alliance to fight Reza. Other factions, including the Fallen Angels made plans to join the Dome alliance.

Then one day, there was a devastating change in relations. The Dome considered Twilight Guardian a nuisance and decided to use their home, the Canyons, as a test site for their new Neutron bomb.

The attack was devastating. The Freedom fighters lost many runners in the attack, forcing many of their allies to reconsider their planned allegiances with the Dome. The surviving Freedom fighters took refuge in Tech Haven with the Fallen Angels, which strained the relations, even more the between Fallen Angels and City Admin.

The Twilight Guardian, decided to locate and recover the designs of the Neutron bomb from the Dome’s secret lab. The mission was only half a success, as City Admin also decided to raid the secret lab. With both City Admin and Twilight Guardian holding incomplete designs to the bomb, both sides could not build a complete bomb.

However as every Free Mind was to find out, Tech Haven’s darkest hour was yet to come.

""" Chapter 1 – Quiet days"""

If one was to read the Neo-hiker’s guide to the wastelands one would notice it doesn’t say a lot about Tech Haven. The opening paragraph just says: “It’s underground and blue – recommend using sunglasses.” Then it lists the traders, which for any guide around these parts, was six years out of date.

Brammers thought to himself he should consider buying out the publisher of the Neo-hiker’s guide and actually making it useful, but he knew he was not going to do that today. The last few weeks had been exhausting with the bombing of the canyons by the Dome, and the raid on the neutron bomb lab, the relations between Fallen Angels and City Admin were not good. The stalemate situation at the lab had led to the Fallen Angels opening fire on City Admin. Brammers had a bad feeling he wasn’t going to hear the last of it for a long time yet. He knew the matter was bothering him considerably as Tricia McMillan, his Fiancée took him out to Breakfast in the Highwatch Road Restaurant in Plaza 4 that morning, just to try and put his mind at rest.

The lift he was travelling in up to the Phoenix store, slowed down and stopped. The door opened, and Brammers stepped out into the hallway. The sensor above the door recognised him, and automatically opened the main doors to the store.

He stepped into the quiet store, to see Maggie Blackstone and Lisa Merlins working away. Normally the store would be a bee-hive of activity. The R&D department would be here working away on researching and construction vehicles and anything else they could get their hands on. Section 2 would be coming and going from their patrols and operations. However today, hardly no-one was about. The R&D department had been assigned to assist the Fallen Angels Science Council, while Section 2 was trying to keep the homeless Twilight Guardian in check around Tech Haven, especially when visitors from other factions were about.

Brammers looked around the empty looking store.

“Good morning sir”, greeted Maggie Blackstone.

“Mrs Blackstone, Miss Merlins”, Brammers replied and nodded. “I can’t stop long, as I’ve been summoned to a meeting with City Admin…Again.”

Lisa and Maggie could tell Brammers was getting fed up with the current crisis. Trying to keep the homeless Twilight Guardian population under control was proving to be an impossible task for the Faction Chairman.

“But first, any messages, may as well start with the 1st item on the list.”

“Yes Sir.” replied Lisa. “First of all Dominion dropped in… waving a white flag I might add. He requested a meeting with you.”

“Dominion…not him again, I guess I’m going to hear why he betrayed the Faction by shopping Fallen Angels to AYB, and why it was justified. Ok tell him I’ll see him after the meeting with City Admin, 10 minutes no more.”

“Ok sir, next Alex Starr dropped in. He said the matter is not about vehicles this time, but the current crisis.”

Brammers first met Alex Starr when he was working briefly for Next, while Phoenix was moving from Tangent to Fallen Angels. Alex Starr was the Faction Counsellor for Next. Becoming friends and also allies with Next help give Phoenix the edge over the competition when it came to vehicle production.

“Understandable, but I’ll see him in the meeting I hope. In fact I’ll leave early and speak to him just before the meeting. Ok I can handle that one.”

Lisa looked down the list to the next item and smiled a little. “This one is a lot simpler. Garyu69 came in. He requested approval for his new name.”

“Approval? Why does he need my approval?” asked Brammers.

“Well the name changing process has to be sponsored by two Faction masters. I said I would be one…”

“…and I’m the second sponsor? That shouldn’t be a problem. What is he changing his name to?”

Lisa picked up the data-disc reader and showed Brammers.

“The History of Land’s End Radio?” Queried Brammers.

“Oops... sorry Sir, that’s my current Ceres disc reading material”. Lisa picked up the 2nd data-disc reader and swapped the reader with the one Brammers had in his hand.

He looked at the data-disc and gave a little grin. “Hmm I like his new name.” He then pressed a button on the reader to give his approval.

“Finally Dough Rosenberg, the Diamond Real Estate designed called in. He has completed the designs for the new Phoenix store early, and wished to be paid. I got to say he done a fine job. He said he will be back to talk to you in an hour, but I guess that not going to happen?”

“Unfortunately not, can you give him my apologies. Hmm I’ve not got the time to look. I’ll trust your word on this. Ok can one of you pay him when he comes?”

“Sure Mr Brammers”, replied Maggie, who was looking for a job to do.

“Excellent, now I have a job for you both. I’ve been in contact with many Angels in Tech Haven, and it seems not everyone is aware of the facts surrounding this crisis. I’ve read both the Neocronicles and the Voice of the Resistance, and I think they are fair articles which everyone should read. Can you arrange for the information to be made available on the Tech Haven network?”

”Yes sir.”, replied Lisa. Maggie looked at Lisa, a little worried.

“Anything else?” asked Maggie.

“I think that's all, any problems?”

“No sir”, the two girls chimed together.

“Ok be safe.” Brammers went upstairs to the Gen-rep. Within few seconds he was gone.

""" Chapter 2 - Information"""

“This sounds like a big task Lisa.”

“It is a bit, can you get the VoTR articles up on the console upstairs I think the Tech Haven Public Mainframe has them. The Neocronicle ones are a little trickier, but I know my way around.”

Maggie went upstairs, and pressed a few keys on the R&D console, and began the task for getting the articles together.

Maggie set to work, if the files were available from the Tech Haven Public Mainframe, then the job was going to be a lot simpler. She clicked on a few displays to access mainframe.

“Verified, Maggie Blackstone, Phoenix.”, chirped the computer. This could get annoying if the computer is going to speak all the time she did anything. She clicked on the option for VoTR news, and there it was, the newsflashes from the Canyon reporters.

She opened one of them, and re-read the horror of the Neutron bomb hitting the Canyons, it was not a pleasant read.

Maggie re-focused on the task in hand – get the news to the Tech Haven Network for all the Angels to read. She requested them to be copied to the Tech Haven Network.

“Copying in Progress – Newsflash one of two… completed.” Maggie smiled; this was proving to be very simple. “Copying in Progress – Newsflash two of two… Network congestion…Estimated time to copy – 5 minutes.”

Maggie sighed; maybe the job wasn’t quite so simple after all.

Downstairs, Lisa was just completing the compilation of articles. There didn’t seem to be much at all. Two Neocronicles released the same time as the VoTR and a new edition of the Neocronicle that came out a few days ago.

“Copying complete”, chipped the computer down in the shop area. “Articles now available”

Lisa decided to read the special editions Neocronicle that had come out.

*Edition 1:

One had heard of the more or less greater disagreements between the Dome of York and the Twilight Guardian even in the city but that this would have such consequences that had probably no one expected. The head of the espionage department of the City Administration, Mitchel Bordan, told me in a short interview what he had got knowledge of:

“Our best men had already long ago been able to leak the information that the Dome of York planned something bigger to the City Administration. We discovered that many new scientists, experts and others were employed in the Dome of York already quite a time ago!”

He took a deep breath and continued.

“One of the scientists was very cooperative after these events and told us that the Dome of York has already been working on a bomb on the basis of the neutron emitter technology for a long time.
It seems the calculated destructiveness of the bomb surpasses the one of an old, conventional nuclear bomb by a multiple.
Shortly after, the team had already succeeded in building a prototype of this bomb.
Because of the grave disagreements and the increasingly more claiming demands of the Twilight Guardian on the negotiators of the Dome of York, it was decided to get rid of the annoying loud-mouths and to test the bomb in the Canyon.
Two of our spies observed from afar how the bomb exploded in the Canyon and it must have been pure madness – a complete success!”

As I heard later on, the survivors of the Twilight Guardian now try to seek shelter from the Fallen Angels in Tech Haven. Already in this moment, troops of the City Administration are being sent out to prevent this and to grant the surviving part of the rebels no chance for safety.

We will keep our citizens of the city up-to-date about following events.

Interview with the Soldier Jack Montogrol

"He was totally dazed when we found him in the wastes, miles away from the canyon in the direction to neocron"

Security Chief Bryan Howell searched with his men in the sectors between Neocron and the Canyon for evaders of the bomb attack. Jack Montogrol was found nearly in the middle of this way, totally weak but not this seriously injured. He was brought into the City Admin Headquarter, his wounds were treated and got something to eat. After he got some vitality back he told us what happened in the Canyon.

"From one to the other moment it was completely dark, seconds later there was a never-ending loud big bang, this loud that ears were going to explode."

He took a sip of water and tried to concentrate. He continued with a loud voice:
"I've done my job like every other day, I patrolled in the canyon when the bomb impacted. I could only throw me to the ground and pray. I thought the bang would never end; it took about 1min, or more. In the first seconds there was a bright light, than the whole canyon went dark, as if a big shadow lay on him. When I raised my head I could feel the rays, which wanted to enter my body. So I took to one's heels and run out of the canyon as far as I could. I could see in the corner of my how the radiation spread out in the canyon. Bolts everywhere, wherever you looked."
His eyes were wide opened and filled with fear.

"Well no wonder that this happened, after these differences between Yager and the Dome. Yager’s actions against the Dome had become harder, kind of aggressive. The Twilight Guardians try to approach everything with their power and to set them above the Dome. The last action of Yager, to send the employee of the Dome home, was the last straw."

His lack of understanding and the destruction of the Canyon opened his eyes, so that the Soldier ran towards Neocron to save his skin.

The City Admin will take care of him and give him a new home and grant him safety in our City.

Edition 2 - Newsflash by Freelancer Lamar Higtons

Neocron's air is boiling. The citizens are wondering what the hell is going on inside the Dome. Large numbers are concerned about the prototype that destroyed the Canyon. However, the government of Neocron has not announced any update on this issue, they just told everyone that everything is okay and that the situation is under control. The usual City Admin statement when things are close to getting out of control.

Well, maybe they are right for a change, but on the other hand, a friend who's working for Proto Pharma told me that some experts were sent to collect samples of the soil near the Canyon and to analyse it. They are trying to find out what the initial reason for the enormous blast was.
The results spoke a clear language: The sample showed the same characteristics as a victim of a neutron-emitter weapon would.
I have a feeling that tells me the City Admin is planning something, but we'll have to wait to see what it is.
We will keep our eyes and ears open for our readers. As soon as there is news around, we'll let you know.

Addendum by Lamar Higtons

A few days ago, I reported that the City Admin was most likely planning something. Most of the citizens must have noticed it already, I believe. They tried to get their hands on the structural design of the bomb, but the City Admin were not the only who planned to get the construction plan of the bomb. I happened to be present at the scene and watched what happened there. Some City Admin spies found out that the secret lab of the Dome is was located close to one of the entrances of the Dome. So a group of specially trained computer-technicians and soldiers was sent to find the secret laboratory and to download all data found in the database.
When they arrived at the lab there were already a lot of scientists of the Fallen Angels and their allies, the Twilight Guardians, which, as you know, found a refuge in Tech Haven for the moment. We had the suspicion that they were also there to break into the lab to download the data. When this suspicion was confirmed, the battle began. As the Technocrats from Tech Heaven worked & fought hand in hand with the Rebels, it seems certain, that they turned against the Reza-Government. A fight like this was never seen before; many bodyguards covered the hackers who tried to download the data during the fight. Some of them were able to download fragments of the data but many others paid with their lives, since the Dome had secured the lab with many soldiers and units.

At some stage, it must have been an hour or more since the troops arrived at the lab, the hackers reported that all accessible data was secured. The battle was looking pretty grieve for Reza's troops, so they withdrew quite soon. At this stage, none of the City's commanders guessed that the Fallen Angels were successful too. The Fallen Angels downloaded some parts of the construction plans as well. At first, the government troops thought they had gotten all the data about the bomb. When they returned to the City Admin headquarters they handed the data to specialists who were to analyse it. When the technicians released their first report, the shock was big. The city forces were only able to get the data related to the detonator and the processing-unit. Silence broke out in the headquarters, but Art Jepherson, being a close assistant to Reza, broke the silence:
"Please don't worry citizens, this is a big step in the right direction and our agents should be able to find out more about the schemes of the bomb. We'll keep you informed."

With these words they sent us home, seems like we'll have to wait to see what's going to happen from now on.

Interview with Art Jepherson about the current state of the war

Just before our deadline one of our hard-working reporters was able to interview Reza's appointed successor, Art Jepherson, about the current critical situation.

Neocronicle: Mister Jepherson, I have to thank you that you agreed to answer us some questions. I am sure you are quite busy these days.
Mr. Jepherson: Indeed. The war against the Dome of York reaches a critical state. But we are reliant that we will survive these heavy seas without prejudice.
Neocronicle: But why this confidence? You had to fight against the Fallen Angels about the blueprints for the bomb and only got those for the fuse!
Mr. Jepherson: Not only them. But please understand that I can't tell you more here. Nondisclosure can decide about victory or death here.
Neocronicle: Sure. But now that the Fallen Angels reveal that they have their own agenda on the side of the Guardians and we realize that we are surrounded by enemies it is hard to understand how you can be that confident.
Mr. Jepherson: Well, not all Fallen Angels are allied to the Guardians. We have observed the activities inside Tech Haven for quite a while now and there are internal fights about how to take a firm stand. There are still these peaceful scientists in there and they are not interested in a conflict with us. We are just negotiating directly with them about the missing blueprints.
Neocronicle: You can't really think that they will give you the blueprints unsolicited, which they have fought for so hard, can you?
Mr. Jepherson: If they are as intelligent as the always say, they will!
Neocronicle: Aren't you a bit overconfident at that point? I mean, look...
An assassin recently made it to your apartment - at least that's what I heard.
Mr. Jepherson: But she didn't make it in! You know, assassins are our daily business. I knew that this position would implicate that, you know, I'm just a demanded ambition for criminal subjects in this city. Oh, and in terms of "Black Scorpion": She already has been questioned and executed. So the tracks lead
us to Black Dragon and their counsellor Kirja Iljusha.
Neocronicle: And which steps you will take?
Mr. Jepherson: We will encourage our observation of the Pepper Park, not only because of that, but also because of the looming relationships between the Dome of York and the criminal Pepper Park factions. Someday we'll catch her flat-footed! But now... Excuse me; I have to go back to headquarters.
Neocronicle: Of course Mr. Jepherson. Thanks for the interview again!

Though his confidence will appear to some of you a little hyperbolical, you got to remind that probably nobody else is that well informed about the situation of the city like our great leader Lioon Reza and his representative Art Jepherson.*

Wesley Smedley, the project manager of Tangent Technologies announced that the current attempts to improve the energy shield have failed, this based on the results of the analysis of the samples ProtoPharm recovered near the canyon. „There are some minor improvements, but we are still some way from our goal: A shield that protects us from the Dome of York bomb“, said Smedley. „We could have achieved much more if NExT had concentrated on this project as well, but they decided that the negotiations with the untrustworthy Fallen Angels were more important. They should have learned by now that these mad scientists are working for the other side.“
Those are harsh words towards NExT. „We have sent all our experts on shield technology", a NExT press release said. "The representatives in the negotiations wouldn't have been any help in this project anyway, as they have no knowledge about shield technology.“ Smedley therefore had to back down and Tangent Technologies pointed out that this was his personal opinion not the one of Tangent Technologies, although they share his fears that it is a mistake to trust the Fallen Angels.

ProtoPharm and BioTech on a search for a cure to radiation damage

"We at ProtoPharm are delighted to get a chance of getting rid of radiation damage, it has always been our goal to achieve this, and these samples, along with BioTech's cooperation, should bring us a long way." And everyone could see the delight on Dr. Laura Snyder's face when she announced this. She was talking about the sample of soil recently recovered near the canyon at the base of the failed energy shield project. Now, together with BioTech, they want to find a cure to radiation damage. Although this will not save us from the bomb, it will improve the quality and duration of life for us citizens if they succeed.
A Short time after this announcement the stock prices of both companies soared. Investors are advised to keep an eye on these stock values.

Who is Art Jepherson's new flame?

Rumours reached us saying that Art Jepherson was seen with a young woman in the Chez Cypher in the Via Rosso sectors. Nobody knows whom she could be and Art Jepherson couldn't be reached for a statement. The Neocronicle offers 500,000 credits for a photo which clearly identifies both Art Jepherson and his new flame. Good money for hobby photographers!
We will keep you up to date about this little love story.*

“Job done…” Lisa wondered upstairs to join Maggie, “Maggie how is it going?”
“Nearly there, there is some network congestion again… ahh it’s done.” The computer chirped again. “Copying complete, articles net optimized by means of external links”

Newsflash 1 – PDF - http://www.TechHaven.org/votr/newsflash01.pdf
Newsflash 2 – PDF - http://www.TechHaven.org/votr/newsflash02.pdf

“Nice work there Maggie, you are getting better than me at using Morpheous’s software.”

“Oh it’s not so bad, hmm I think I’ll head off in a moment and see my Husband.”

“Why not, hmm who shall I see.” Lisa replied, and felt in her pocket for her nail polish, when she heard an odd rattle from downstairs.

""" Chapter 3 – Plant life"""

The odd rattling continued to be heard in the store by Lisa. Maggie looked up from her console. Maggie noticed in the corner of her eye, that one of the plants downstairs was shaking a little. She looked at the plant, and then she looked at Lisa.

“Did you overwater the plant again Lisa?”

“No…not touched them all week. All the people who called today have been fiddling with it today.”

“Then why is that plant…”

Suddenly, there was a loud crack, as the Gaminion case of the plant shattered into a thousand pieces of burning Gaminion. The two girls jumped back a few steps with the loud crack sound. Where once the plant was, there now was a glowing hot ball that was getting brighter, and making a high pitch roaring sound, that was getting louder by the second.

Maggie and Lisa covered their ears, and looked at each other in horror, as the ground floor of the store was now ablaze in a fire of molten Gaminion, and the transparent Arillium floor was now bubbling.

Maggie started making a run for the Genrep a few metres away, and Lisa was not far behind. Whatever this bomb was going to do to the store, they was decided that they wasn’t going up with the store.

Maggie opened the Genrep console and selected the first free Genrep she could find – Tech Haven Sector 2 – Genrep A, and she just hoped whatever was happening in the store was going to be contained within the Phoenix Store and Tech Haven Sector 1. In a brief second Maggie’s molecules disappeared into a steam of genes, unseen by the human eye.

The noise stopped, and the store became very dark except for a bright single point of light. In the darkness there existed pools of superheated Arillium and melted cabinets. Lisa turned around briefly to see the bright single point of light.

The single point of light began to flicker. Lisa turned around and clicked on the Genrep console and picked the nearest open Genrep.

The Genrep in Tech Haven Sector two buzzed into life, and Maggie stepped out. She shivered as she adjusted from the heat of the store to the air-conditioned comfort of Tech Haven Sector 2.

Whatever that bomb was in the store was nothing she could even begin to comprehend. She held up her heal, and whispered to herself. “Guar de Santo” Immediately, she began to feel better, when she heard a dull thud from the direction of Tech Haven Sector 1, and the ground briefly shook.

“What the hell was that”, Brammers asked in a sharp and urgent voice over the Phoenix voice-link.

“Maggie here sir…someone set off…a bomb in the store.”

“WHAT?! Who was in there?”

“Myself and Lisa… we both got out just in time via the Genrep.”

There was a pause. Brammers spoke in a calmer voice. “Are you ok Maggie?”

“Yes…just shaken but I’ll be fine.”

“Ok Maggie I’ll get Marcus Blade to check you over as soon as possible. Lisa, how about you”

There was an agonising silence of what seem like an eternity over the voice channel. The silence was broken by one voice.

“Lisa, report! Are you ok?”

""" Chapter 4 – Sensor Node Four - Written by Morpheous"""

Morpheous opened his eyes, to the sound of a loud thud. And the room shook violently for a brief second.

"Alert: Sensor node four offline."

Morpheous sighed and reached for his neural interface. He shut off the audible alert and looked at the last data readings.

Node four was the Phoenix store, with the inch square patch of sensors mounted next to the sub-processor.

He frowned and turned on the Phoenix voice link.

Fragments of Brammers's and Maggie's voices shot over the link.
"Guys, what the hell is happening? Helios woke me, the store's sensors are off and I can't load the subproc unit..." Morpheous asked.

Brammers replied at once, but Morph had to tweak his suit to get a link stable.

"...Bomb...some kind of *Crackle*... Comms are down, no casualties. Get to the lift, we're trying to get back in, we think Lisa is trapped inside."

"Roger that Brammers, on my way. Need any kit?" Morph replied

"Lots, but you tell me what- it's a mess, even to the lift. I heard it in TH3, despite the new soundproofing maintenance put in."

Morpheous held his hand over a scanner and a cabinet popped open. He pulled out a HEW Liquid Fire rifle and a set of PB20 drones, loading them and locking them into place on his back. He grabbed a pair of LR-1’s from a nearby shelf.

The lift ground into action, and almost jammed halfway down. He clipped his helmet on and locked the sealing rings down smoothly. His RPOS came online, and he loaded his chat window. Only the Phoenix com-link and direct were usable here, meaning that all communications were down for a fair chunk of Tech Haven. He stepped out and greeted the members of eXo and Phoenix waiting at the lift, or attacking the lift with fusion and plasma.

"Morpheous", greeted Brammers

"'lo Bram" he replied

"Want to take a look?"

"Sure. Got the lift open yet?"

"Looks like we just opened the doors..."

Morpheous stuck his head through the jagged hole that Melangior and Hiro Blackstone had made with their fusion cannons. There was no light shining from the top floor, where Phoenix was located.

"Looks ok. I can’t see anything. What survived? The Helios sub-processor was armoured, that didn't survive..."

"Weird. Lets get up there."

"Right."

The two tanks dragged the portable GravLift unit into place and Garyu69 powered it up.

"Should be working..." Garyu69 said.

He moved back to the entrance but tripped on a piece of door, landing with his feet on the lift unit. He began to be lifted up by his feet, making defeated gestures down at the crowd below. Maggie hopped in and turned the lift off, and leapt out of the way as Garyu69 fell to the floor. Wraith Nightcaster cast a heal, and Garyu69 walked carefully out, followed by Wraith and Maggie. The rest of the crowd finished laughing and started loading their guns.

"Well, we'd better take a look. Morph, got an LR-1?" Brammers was still laughing.

"Sure." replied Morph, grinning and placing the drone on the lift.

Maggie turned the lift on, avoiding the debris Garyu69 tripped on carefully. The drones hit the end stop of the lift and activated. Morph hooked the cameras up to some portable Plasma screens.

"Right, lets power this up..."

'System online. Drone LR-1 'Oracle' online, pilot Morpheous. Drone LR-1 'Dromcam' online, pilot Brammers.'

"Dromcam?" asked several people

"Er... How did that get there?" grinned Brammers.

“Camera 1 online. Camera 2 online. Movement systems online.”

Morph and Brammers jetted forwards quickly, making the jump to the store's lobby. The door was burnt out, and they flew straight in.

""" Chapter 5 – Burnt out store"""

The two LR-1 drones flew into the store. Inside it was pitch black. “Ok lights…wide field.”

The search beams fitted to the drones, turned on attempting to illuminate the area around. It was very difficult to make the out anything in the store. The walls were pitch black. Whatever this bomb had done it certainty had done a good job of destroying the store, Brammers thought.

Brammers flew his drone forward a little and did a slow 360 sweep of the area, trying to make any sense of the walls in the store. He then saw Morpheous drone searchlight looking at his and moving upwards.

“You spotted something Morpheous?”

“No, but your drone… Ahh the transparent Arillium floor has gone.”

Brammers tilted the drone downwards, and the light immediately refracted in all directions. He could make out what looked liked a cabinet, which was heavily distorted. He powered the drone backwards and tilted the drone upwards to where the walkway was.

It was gone.

“The store is a complete mess… ok towards to Genrep Morph.”

The two drones Oracle and Dromcam flew out of the pit and towards the development area. All the cabinets that were there had melted into a lump of metal.

Morpheous sighed. “If Lisa was in there, when that bomb went off, she wouldn’t have survived.”

The crowd that was gathered remained silent. Garyu69 looked down fearing the worse. Morpheous and Brammers continued to scan the area for the Genrep. A brief wave of static hit the display of Brammers’s drone. Confused, he turned the drone 360 degrees, and the searchlight illuminated the Genrep.

“My sense of direction is screwed in darkness…found the Genrep, and it’s intact.” Brammers informed Morpheous. “Can you get a scan of the area for remains of life signs.”

Morpheous nodded; before realising Brammers wouldn’t have been able see him nodding. “Yes sir”

He adjusted his drone, and it tracked the path that Brammers had taken. He stopped short of where the Genrep was.

“Enabling scans.” The plasma display started to show many different colours. Morpheous shook his head. “Helios analyse video feed from drone Oracle – identify any life signs.”

“Negative – no life signs identified.”

Morpheous took a deep breath. “Helios – identify any remains of life.”

“Negative – no remains of life identified.”

“Helios – enable data link to Genrep…let see if the records are still intact.”

“Good thinking Morpheous.”, Brammers replied.

“Link enabled – data available.” Helios chirped.

“Ok retrieve outgoing records for today.”

“Retrieving… 5 records found.”
“Record 1 Time 7:24:09 - User: - Tricia McMillan - Destination - Plaza 4 Highwatch Road. Status: Cycle complete.”
“Record 2 Time 7:24:09 - Genrep use - Brammers - Destination - Plaza 4 Highwatch Road. Status: Cycle complete.”
“Record 3 Time 9:58:10 – User: Brammers. Destination: City Admin HQ. Status: Cycle complete.”
“That sounds good so far”, replied Brammers.
“Record 4 Time 10:15:07 – User: Maggie Blackstone. Destination: Tech Haven Sector 2 Genrep A. Status: Cycle complete.”
“Record 5 Time 10:15:08 – User: Lisa Merlins…”
“Yes she made it!”, shouted Garyu69
“…Destination: Unknown. Status: Cycle complete.”
“Ohh… Erm where is she?” asked Garyu69.
“Good question….” Replied Brammers, “One moment while I pull the drone back.”

After several minutes the two drones few out of the hole in the door down in Tech Haven Sector 1, and dropped to the ground. Brammers walked around for a second considering his options. He was not going to give up until he knew for sure that Lisa was alive or dead, but so far he had no evidence to prove either theory, well except that she wasn’t in the store and had genrepped to an unknown destination.

“Ok Morph recall all members of Section 2 and any available R&D staff.” Brammers turned and looked at Garyu69. “Garyu69, I request the assistance of eXo.”

“Of course Mr Brammers… Tell me what you need.”

“We need to check every known and unknown Genrep around the wastelands, and in Neocron.”

""" Chapter 6 – The note."""

The door open, and the runner stepped into the dimly let Pepper Park apartment. He handed the woman a piece of folded paper, and left the apartment almost as quickly as he arrived. She opened the piece of paper and read the first line.

“Phoenix store destroyed.”

She let herself smile a little, her plan for revenge had worked! Then she read the second line.

“Brammers reported alive.”

She screwed up the paper and threw it at the door and slammed the table with her fist in anger.

""" Chapter 7 – Search party"""

The Neo-Hikers guide to Sector I12 is, for once informative. Most Neocron runners call this region the Desert if they had not visited it before. If you had been, as in most cases, unfortunate to visit this region, you would call it hell. And if you were the average GenTank, you probably go and demand a full refund at Military base on your power armour when it leaked in sand, before ganking the seller for refusing to give a refund. Unfortunately for the frequently changing seller at Military Base who sold the power armour, it was more of a case of being ganked first by the GenTank, before being asked for a refund. For these many reasons alone the job Military Base Power Armour seller got voted the least satisfying job at Military base.

Like any other day in this sector it was very windy and dry. The strong wind was stirring up the sand into small sandstorms, making visibility virtually zero. No runner would be mad enough to be walking out in these sandstorms, and certainly no Drom would be here either. The only thing of note was a lone Rhino tank crossing the sector at full speed on it’s way to Tristar uplink in the sector next to I12.

The three occupants, Sedna, Kolesar and SanityIsLost had been searching all the genrep's in the North East regions for any signs of Lisa. So far, nothing had turned up.

“Should be in Tristar in two minutes Sil”, said Sedna who was driving the Rhino at full speed.

“That’s chilled, then we better report in to Tech Haven.” Replied SanityIsLost. SanityIsLost was worried about Lisa, then part of her felt she didn’t care about Lisa, but she was puzzled why she would think that. Maybe she would meditate on the matter latter with her pet, Herb back in Tech Haven.

Sedna thought for a second, “Kolesar, what you think…should I dye my hair?”

“Err to what colour?” questioned Kolesar.

“Hmm… Dunno. Not green, since I did have that colour hair before my droning accident… And everyone in Fallen Angels seems to think green hair is in. With the exception of Lisa and me, Tricia and Siona have green hair, and I heard Ressi is going to change her hair colour to green as well”

“How about cutting it short and making it black. That would be very sexy and chilled!” suggested SanityIsLost.

“Hmm…I like that idea.”, Smiled Sedna” Ok here we are, Tristar Uplink Genrep.”

The Rhino pulled up outside the Genrep room. Kolesar jumped out and got his Silent Hunter out, and scanned the horizon for hostiles.

“Looks all clear, except for a group of Elite Storm bots gathered south. Hmm what they doing in this sector, they are normally on Patrol further North.”

“I don’t know dude. Sedna, get those Genrep records checked, I don’t want to be around here too long with those stormies about.”

Sedna jumped out of the driving Seat and walked up to the Genrep. She got out the link lead to her hacktool, and plugged it into the access port. She pressed a few keys on her hacktool and waited for thirty seconds for the hacktool to break the security layer. After thirty seconds, the tool beeped and started to download the records. Sedna examined the records and shook her head. “Nothing here.”

“Damn that’s not chilled.” SanityIsLost replied. She walked over to the Rhino and activated the com-link to Tech Haven.

“Brammers Sir?”

“Go ahead SiL”, replied Brammers.

“Tristar is a negative. That’s the whole North East Region checked out.”

“Understood. Ok then. Can you check out Krupp, Jeriko and Simmons? eXo ran into some problems with Tangent at Jankins, and are bit behind in their search.”

“They ok Sir?”

“Oh yeah, they took a few injuries but nothing they could handle. And besides Tangent was well and truly Tea-bagged. eXo will be checking out Hawkins, Regents, Gravis, Redrock and Tryron”

SanityIsLost grinned. “That’s chilled – Ok we are on route to Krupp. Out”

Sedna jumped into the Rhino and started the tank up again and revved up the engine. Kolesar and SanityIsLost jumped in the back. The Rhino left at full speed for Krupp.

""" Chapter 8 – The Search Continues"""

Tyron Factory Genrep. It was an unusual sunny day, and for the occupants for the Reveller that pulled up, it was most pleasing that it wasn’t raining as usual.

Allure in the Reveller turned off the Engine. Garyu69 and Belkin jumped out. Garyu69 looked around.

“Ok keep your eyes peeled, I don’t want Tangent pulling another surprise today on us.” said Garyu69. He walked up to the Genrep and crouched next to it. He got out his link lead and plugged it into the socket on the Genrep. He opened the display on his hacktool, and pressed the start key. Straight away the display on the hacktool went blue.

“Damnit” frowned Garyu69. He got up and walked back to the Reveller and fetched a spare hacktool. He unplugged the link lead from the old hacktool and plugged it into the new hacktool. He opened the display and pressed the start key. Success, the hacktool leaped into life. He waited 30 seconds for it to complete its hacking sequence. The tool then beeped and started to download the Genrep transaction records.

Garyu69 scanned the records and stopped at one record and stopped at one record.

It read “Record 79 Time 10:15:09 – User: Lisa Merlins. Source: Tech Haven. Status: Cycle incomplete.”

“Incomplete?” asked Garyu69. He stood up, “Seems she came to this Genrep, but the cycle didn’t complete. Look around for any signs or traces of her.”

Allure and Belkin started to look around the Genrep building. Straight away Belkin spotted something glitter in the grass. He walked up to it and picked up a PSI module of incredible quality.

“SIR!” Shouted Belkin. Garyu69 ran over to the spot where Belkin was standing. Belkin handed him the PSI module. Garyu69 examined the module very closely. “That looks like Lisa’s Holy Lightning spell. In fact I’m pretty sure. Allure can you look?”

Allure walked over and took the PSI module. “It feels and looks like hers, from when I last looked at it… Shall I try it?”

Garyu69 nodded. Allure held the PSI module and whispered to herself. “Lampo Santo” A bolt of energy hit a nearby rusty bolt and burnt a hole in the top panel. “That’s her spell all right.” She handed it back to Garyu69.

“Better call Brammers up.” Garyu69 said, as he started to adjust his com-link.
”Go ahead Garyu69” Brammers replied.

“Mr Brammers Sir. Lisa came out at Tyron Genrep, and we have recovered her Holy Lightning spell. Can you get the other teams to come here so we can expand the search?”

“What time did she get there?”

“10:15:09 Sir”

There was a long silence on the com-link.

“Negative on the search Garyu69.”, Replied Brammers, ”Bring the spell and the Genrep records back to Tech Haven. We have a bigger mystery on our hands now. I’ll explain everything when you get here.”

Allure and Belkin both looked at Garyu69 very puzzled.

""" Chapter 9 - One too many"""

The doors opened to let Garyu69, Belkin and Allure walk into the Phoenix Rare storage apartment in Tech Haven Sector 1, which was the makeshift location for the Phoenix store. Inside waiting was SanityIsLost, Sedna, Kolesar, Brammers and Morpheous. Kolesar and Sedna was busy studying something under a microscope.

Garu69 walked up to Brammers. “Whets happening?”

“Let Kolesar and Sedna have the spell and give the Genrep records to Morpheous”

Garyu69 handed the Hacktool to Morpheous. He placed it near a remote access point, and pressed a key on his terminal.

“Garyu69, sorry for calling you back like that. But it seems there is a problem. You see SanityIsLost’s team recovered a Holy Lightning spell from Simmons Factory. They described it as belong to Lisa’s like you did. Also they have Genrep records saying she arrived at Simmons Genrep…at precisely 10:15:09”

Garyu69 eyes opened up. “You saying she arrived at both Genrep’s?”

Brammers Nodded “From the initial reports from yours and Sanity’s team, that what the conclusion is. Morpheous is double checking the records for any time difference and....”

“That’s impossible…”, shouted Sedna from the other side of the room. Brammers and Garyu69 walked over to the microscope. Sedna was shaking her head.

“Sir!”, began Sedna. These two Holy Lightning’s are identical down to the molecule signature.

This time Brammers was taken aback. “That’s... Impossible. What are the stats on the spell?”

“4 slots, 2 are used. 120 on damage, frequency, handling and range. It also has your own signature on it as well…and that’s also on the 2nd one.”

Brammers looked very puzzled. He walked over to the go-guardian and opened it. He pulled out a red book, and opened it. “Unless my records are wrong, and my memory is wrong, I’ve only ever made one Holy Lightning with four slots.”

Kolesar looked up from the Microscope. “Sir I agree with Sedna’s findings…the two Holy Lightning’s are identical…even if it is impossible.”

Garyu69 was even more puzzled. “So what does all this mean?”

“Garyu69, it’s impossible for any constructor to create something that is 100% identical. The parts, chemicals and blueprint copy makes every item unique. I may build something with the same stats, slots and construction signature, but the molecule signature will always be different. The chances of a normal weapon having the same molecule signature are so slim that it’s like 1 chance in 800 billion. And for a rare weapon like this holy lightning…well the number is just insanely long.”

Morpheous turned around from his Terminal. “Sir, the Genrep time records are correct and in sync.”

Brammers walked up the room lost in thought. He looked for a long second at the wall, before turning around. “It means there are now two copies of Lisa’s spell and also two Lisa Merlins walking around the wastelands.”

“Ermm that’s not quite correct Sir.” Morpheous replied. “The Genrep cycle records are marked as incomplete. I checked them further. It seems they got to stage 2 and aborted. You see stage 1 is opening the connection from the source, stage 2 is where the runner’s items are materialised. Stage 3 is when the runner themselves materialises, and Stage 4 is the final alignment stage.”

“So her weapons appeared at both genrep’s but not Lisa?” Garyu69 summed up.

“Correct” replied Morpheous.

Brammers walked up and down the room again. “So… What's the connection between Tyron Factory, Simmons Factory and two Holy Lightning spells?”

The room went quiet for a whole minute. The silence in the room was broken when the doors to the apartment opened. Maggie Blackstone ran in looking out of breath.

“Boss, I’ve got big news. Lupus Wonderboy has resigned as Faction Counsellor.”

The room remained in silence, everyone was completely stunned by the latest news.

""" Chapter 10 - Lupus resigns"""

“Say that again…” Brammers asked Maggie.

“Lupus has resigned – it’s in the latest edition of the Voice of the Resistance. And I just called in at his office, and he confirmed it to me in person. He also requested a meeting with you and Garyu69 at 23:00 NST in the prime bore he said… But I don’t know where the prime bore is.”

Garyu69 and Brammers looked at each other. They was amongst the few people in Fallen Angels who knew where the prime bore was.

“23:00 that's 10 minutes away. We better get going. Everyone here, get to the bottom of this dam mystery. Call in anyone from the other departments to help if needed.”

Garyu69 and Brammers left the apartment, and took the lift down to sector 1. The lift door opened and they stepped out. There was a few Twilight Guardian sleeping on the floor. Brammers looked at them for a brief second before opening the door to the connecting corridor between the main corridors of Sector 1 and 2A to 2C entrances. They waited for the door to close behind them. Instead of going straight on they took a right into another section that lead to the deepest sections of Sector 1. Brammers and Garyu69 passed through 3 more doors before they approached they final door and opened it.

The two runners stepped into the bottom of the long shaft of Tech Haven sector 1, which lead to the surface. It had long ladders running up to the top and no gravlift. The entrance at the top had been sealed since City Admin had set up their scanning station outside Tech Haven to keep an eye on the Fallen Angels.

“I just hope I don’t have to climb up to the top today.” Brammers said looking up to the top.

“Not today. “, came a voice came up from above Brammers and Garyu69. “Come up to the second platform.”

Brammers and Garyu69 obliged and climbed the ladders to the second level.

“I bet none of you know why Thomas Cooper and his 62 followers choose to bore a shaft at this point in the mountains.”

Brammers and Garyu69 looked at each other. “No sir”, replied Garu69.

“Well for a start the ores in this part of the mountain are very unique. It seems that scanning signals cannot penetrate from the outside into this area, yet any scanning equipment located in here can scan the outside world, and not be detected. The perfect natural cloak, except we don’t do anything like that now. It was used for a while in the early days of Tech Haven against the rule of Crahn.”

Brammers and Garyu69 sat down on the ledge of the 2nd level.

“The Fallen Angels Science Council knew this, so they sealed the door at the top, for…lets just say safety reasons.”

Brammers started to get a little impatient. “Sir, I’ve had a long day…and not the best of days. My store has been blown up, Miss Merlins is missing in the most bizarre circumstances, and now I hear you have resigned. Why Sir did you resign?”

Lupus stood up. “Lets face it Brammers, the Angels are in a very difficult position. City Admin have never liked us being friends with Twilight Guardian, but as least they have accepted it. Yours and Zane Shadowfall's work in making Tech Haven as safe to all visitors has paid off. However, the incident with Dome of York bombing the Canyons has changed things. The Angels felt obliged to help the Guardians, which was the correct thing to do. After all how many times have they helped us when Tangent or Black Dragon wanted to storm this place.”

Brammers nodded in agreement “That's true...until City Admin decided take advantage of the situation when we were moving them all from the canyons. City Admin and the Angels did engage a few times.”

Garyu69 shook his head. “Although their excuse for attempting to control both of the Tech Haven entrances just doesn’t wash with me. Like hello City Admin, the Dome nuked the Canyons, doesn't their listening devices tell them that most of the guardian want to take on the Dome... Not City Admin?”

Brammers though for a second and he knew Garyu69 was right “I quite agree, I could see the logic of them controlling the south entrance, but the north, I would expect those NE2250 scout units to be out there.”

“I would agree, something is fishy there.”, Lupus said. “Now as for the relations between Dome of York and the Angels, they are not good either since we, again... help Twilight Guardian fight against their enemy to steal the blueprints from their lab and destroy it.”

Brammers and Garyu69 wasn’t going to argue with point Lupus made.

“So we now have a problem.”, Lupus continued.” The relations between Dome of York and City Admin to the Angels is very frail, because we sided with the Guardians. As you know, its split the faction down the middle. One half saying we shouldn't be involved and the other saying we have a duty to help the guardians. Both have valid arguments, and all these arguments got a lot louder, ever since we had been holding the bomb blueprints in our secure computer systems.”

“I've been listening to both sides as well. Trust me it's been driving me around the wall, but all this doesn't explain your resignation. Or does it?”, asked Brammers.

“Well I was getting to that bit...I had an idea which ultimately lead to my resignation.”

Garyu69 tapped his finger on the ledge. “And your idea was?”

“Quite simply, let the faction split in two.”

Garyu69 and Brammers looked at each other wondering if they had really heard Lupus correctly.” WHAT?”, they both exclaimed.

Lupus repeated his last statement slowly. “Split the faction in two.”, he waited for Brammers and Garyu69 to absorb the big idea, before carrying on. “What we would have is Fallen Angels on one side like yourselves, and the non-fighting traders on the other side.”

Garyu69 shook his head. Something wasn’t adding up. “Ok last time I checked, Fallen Angels are free minds. People don’t resign over ideas even if they are bad ideas… And if you ask me this does sound like a bad idea.”

Lupus smiled a little. “I’m still a free mind and I didn't resign over the idea. Well quite simply the Fallen Angels Science Council approved of the idea, and needed to appoint a faction leader. This is where I stepped in, and obviously I can't have two jobs in two different factions. So I said I would lead the new faction.”

Lupus, Garyu69 and Brammers debated the merits and the problems of actually creating a new faction would bring, to both Tech Haven and the rest of the world. At first Brammers wasn’t too keen on the idea, but after a while he realised that Lupus and the Fallen Angels Science Council was set on the idea and there was very little he could do to change it.

After about thirty minutes, everyone had agreed their had made their points, right or wrong, and it was now the time to accept that there was going to be a new faction.

“Well”, Brammers concluded, “It’s going to be interesting this new faction, but we can continue this another day. Time for me to call it a night.”

Garyu69 got up first, as he was keen to also call it a night.

Lupus got up and smiled. “Be Safe you two”

“Keep a free mind”, Brammers replied.

“Form a society” Lupus replied.

“I think you just did Lupus... Oh what are you going to call the new faction?”, grinned Garyu69.

"I'm still working on that.", replied Lupus.

Brammers got up and started the short decent down to the bottom of the shaft. Garyu69 and Brammers left the long shaft and headed back to the main corridors of Tech Haven Sector 1.

“Hmm you fancy a drink at Leroy’s Bar”, asked Garyu69.

“No not tonight…much I would like to. I really need to see Tricia. I’ve been neglecting her with this crisis.” Brammers began to smile a little.

Garyu69 knew Tricia was one special girl to Brammers. He also wondered how Brammers managed the endless juggle of keeping Phoenix going, running the Fallen Angels Faction, and also keeping the one he loved happy as well. One night Brammers while a little drunk admitted that if he had to choose one of the three, he would choose Tricia any day. Garyu69 remembered something else. He thought he would mention it to Brammers now, but decided against it.

“Hmm… on 2nd thoughts, I think I will turn in as well.”

“Ok then Be Safe.” replied Brammers

Garyu69 headed of in the direction of entrance 1A while Brammers headed off towards Entrance 2C to Tricia’s apartment.

Garyu69 got to entrance 1A, and typed in his password to his apartment. The lift moved up slowly to the level of his apartment, and stopped. The door open and he stepped out into the lobby of his apartment. He pressed the buzzer and the doors opened. He walked over to the drinks cabinet and got out a bottle of Jack.

He opened the bottle took a swig and sat down. He looked at his terminal on the other side of the room, and saw the display. “You have 1 new message waiting” it said in bright blue.

Garyu69 was a little surprised, as the blast at the Phoenix store blew most of the communication lines to Tech Haven Sector 1. He knew that the technicians were working flat out to restore communications to sector 1, but he wasn’t expecting his to be working so soon. Perhaps he was one of the lucky ones to have his link restored, or maybe it wasn’t damaged in the first place.

Garyu69 thought he'd better check the email just in case. He got up from his seat and walked over to the terminal, and pressed a key to open the new email. The display changed and started to display the contents.
Code:
To: Garyu69
From: Lisa Merlins

Garyu69 hope he wasn’t going to be reading Lisa’s final message. Then he looked at the next line.
Code:
Sent: 23:15NST

Garyu69 looked again at the time. It still read “Sent: 23:15NST”. That meant Lisa had sent the message in the last 30 minutes, while he was meeting Lupus. Garyu69 hoped deeply that no one from eXo was playing a very cruel joke on him. He scrolled down to the body of the message and immediately was puzzled.
Code:
Character set not found: Raw data stream.
110 01 010 1011 001 00 1 00 000 0100 00 000 01 010 0 100 10 01 00 0100 000 0000 0 0100 0110 00 01 11 1 010 01 0110 0110 0 100 00 10 000 00 100 0 110 010 01 0001 00 000 001 0110 0100 00 10 101
End of Steam.

Garyu69 went to open a com-link.

""" Chapter 11 - New world - Written by Morpheous"""

Morpheous sat back and placed the makeshift device over his head.

He tapped a few keys, and slid down a faceplate.

Slowly a glowing reality of his world appeared. Streaks of blue interlaced with red and orange shadows of the programs he had written to defend the Haven's data. He had finally achieved his dream- access to computers in ways never before imagined. Suddenly there was a darkening of the scene, and blood-red lines streaked over the blue. There was a flash of light and...

He gasped at what he saw, and tried to find the recorder program on his terminal, but it was gone.

He flipped up the visor and breathed deeply, as his com-link buzzed.

""" Chapter 12 – City Admin Special Projects - Written by Siygess"""

Katherine sat back in her chair and stared at the glowing screen in front of her with a certain sense of satisfaction. The boys at central had been running this code for eight hours so far and come up empty, but it had only taken her thirty minutes, and that was without special software. Sometimes getting your hands dirty really paid off.

Reaching across her desk, she picked up a phone and dialled the switchboard.

"Special Projects please. Thanks. Hello? This is Mayer. I need a black box and support staff ASAP. No, hard-line, not wireless, this box needs to be isolated. What? Right. KM07-CC595. Fifteen minutes? That's good enough for me."

With that, she hung up, and relaxed further in her seat. This was an opportunity she couldn't pass up.

""" Chapter 13 - Message in a bottle"""

It was 9:00NST in Tech Haven Sector 1. Brammers entered the cramped apartment, which was serving as the temporary location for the Phoenix HQ. Inside the apartment there was people everywhere, all in full conversation.

Straight away he could see the full complement of the Phoenix Management staff, all recalled from their various assignments, and several more eXo members. Brammers immediately saw nearly all his senior management staff was here. Ben, Husk, Morpheous, SanityIsLost, Wraith Nightcaster, Renegade Maggie Blackstone and her husband Hiro Blackstone.

He then spotted Marcus Blade and Michael Blade upstairs, and it looked liked the two brothers was arguing about something as usual. From eXo Brammers could Garyu69 was here, with Krunky, S3-X0, Belkin and Allure.

Brammers raised his hand, to silence the room, and the conversation stopped. Morpheous looked up from the terminal and got up.

“Ok Morpheous, report”

“We think we have located Lisa Sir.”

“Think? I need something better than that… Ok tell me what you got.”

“Ok Sir. Right, last night the message Garyu69 got a message from Lisa on his Citycomm. We not been able to decipher the message she sent, but one thing for sure the message wasn’t a prank message and we did track the route it came. It came in the Tech Haven gateway via link 2, which leads to several uplinks.”

Morpheous walked over to the table and picked a large rolled up map.

“Yesterday you asked the question what’s the connection between Tyron Factory, Simmons Factory and two Holy Lightning spells. Well if you ignore the Holy Lightning spells you have two genrep, which are, unusually linked by underground cable links, rather than satellite links to Gravis Uplink.”

Morpheous rolled out the map on the floor.

“Link 2 also connects to Gravis uplink”

“And the two Holy Lightning’s? Where do they come in?”

“We are still puzzled by that one. This is what I propose. We take Gravis Uplink and get control of it. Then the hackers can scan the systems for any signs of her, without having to worry too much about security programs interfering or excessive data. This would keep the risks to Lisa to a minimum… If she is trapped inside Gravis Uplink.”

Brammers looked around the room. “Anyone else have anything?”. No-one said anything.

“Ok I guess this is the best lead we have. You have a go, get a team ready to take Gravis…who is holding it?”

“Freedom Force Sir”, a voice shouted from the back.

“That’s good news, I’ll go and speak to Lore and ask for a peaceful handover of the op.”

Garyu69 got up. “There was a lot of Tangent in the north of that area yesterday, can we come along as well?”

“Please do… Morpheous how long will this take?”

“Could be hours, or days or weeks… No idea Sir”

Brammers looked back at Garyu69. “I think we need a good size force if the hackers are to work there with the minimum of risk.” Brammers turned back to Morpheous. “Ok take a force to Gravis. Wait for my authorisation to hack the op off Freedom Force.”

Morpheous picked up the map from the floor to avoid it being tramped on by the whole room. “Ok everyone, we take Rhinos, vehicles and travel on foot to Gravis – no genrepping, I want to keep the data traffic as low as possible in Gravis. Meet outside Tech Haven exit 1 in 15 minutes. Lets go!”

Garyu69 remembered from last night to have a word with Brammers. He approached. “Can I have a quiet word Sir?”

“Sure…” Brammers could tell from Garyu69’s look that he wanted a private word. They waited for the room to clear.

“Ok Garyu69, what’s on your mind?”

“Sir, just wondering, has Section 2 paid any attention to who bombed the Phoenix store?”

“No they haven’t. Getting Lisa back has been the top priority for them.”

“I was giving it some thought, and I was wondering. Who was the attack aimed at? Fallen Angels, Phoenix…or yourself?”

Brammers stopped to think for a moment. “Hmm…Good question. No-one has claimed responsibility, and the store so burnt out, none of the teams have turned up any clues. Whoever did it didn’t wish to be identified. If it was an attack against Fallen Angels, or Phoenix, then we have the usual suspects. And as far as I know, all my personal enemies are in the list of the usual suspects who have their own clans with plenty of firepower to attack me. Tell you what, as soon as we get the uplink secured, I’ll have a meeting with Section 2 and see what they have turned up”

“Ok Sir, but I do recommend you have bodyguards with you sir at all times.”

“You know how much I hate having bodyguards with me.”

“Well do it for Tricia, she really hates seeing you get hurt.”

Brammers wasn’t going to argue with that. He opened his com-link. “Husk?”

“Yes Sir?”

“Could you arrange… A bodyguard please? For myself.”

“Of course Sir! Erm... Who’s making a threat to you?”

“Only a precaution, since we don’t know whom the store bombing was actually aimed at. Could be me, Phoenix or the Angels.”

“That’s true sir…I’ll get some of the other section 2 staff to look into it more…and I’ll be along shortly sir as your Bodyguard.”

“Thank you Husk”.

Brammers started to make his way to the Tech Haven Faction offices, where he knew Lore of Freedom Force was most likely to be.

""" Chapter 14 - A walk in Tech Haven"""

Sam and Max were bored. The two Twilight Guardian Gentank's sat down at Leroy’s bar in Tech Haven Sector 2, drinking as much Cron 55 as possible. They were both trying to make the loudest burp as possible, when someone came in through the genrep. Both of them wish someone would hurry up and issue the “Big order” so they could see some action. Even an order from their leader Lore of Freedom Force telling them to go and raid somewhere would be just as welcomed.

Sam saw the Genrep briefly glow into life to re-assemble the atoms of a nearly arrived runner.

The nearly arrived City Admin spy stepped away from Genrep and looked around. He started making his away towards Leroy’s bar, when Sam turned around and burped loudly to make the spy stop dead in his tracks with a face of terror.

Sam stared at the spy for a few seconds, before tapping Max on the shoulder. Max looked around, and burped loudly as the spy flinched as if he was expecting Max’s loud burp to end his life.

Max got up, and side-by-side Sam and Max started to slowly approach the even more terrified spy.

“I can... I can go to another bar...” said the Spy in a voice of panic.

The two Gentank’s continued to slowly approach the spy, who was trying to make a feeble attempt to step back towards the Genrep.

“Ok…I’ll buy you free drinks...just tell me what to do...just don’t kill me”, the spy said in an almost begging voice.

The two Gentank’s stopped and stood either side of the City Admin Spy. Sam, once again stared at the spy.

“I like to play a game with you”, Sam said continuing to stare into the eyes of the City Admin spy.

“A game, oh…I like games.”

“You are going to like this game.” Whispered Max into the ear of the spy. Max opened his backpack and got out an odd looking rope. Max tied one end of the rope to the spy’s belt, and held the other end of the rope in his hand.

“Ok little spy.” Said Sam, “This rope that Max has tied to you is called a bungee rope. Now to win this game, you have to run with your little fast skinny legs to the genrep within 30 seconds.”

“And… And… Err... what do I get if I win?”

Sam moved his face closer to the face of the spy. “You get to keep your life”

The colour of the spy’s face drained to a terrified white, and he started to run towards the genrep. The spy got halfway to the genrep and the bungee rope was already tense, and starting to stretch a little. But instead of stretching the rope, and running slowly towards the genrep, he started to run on the spot, unable to move. He started to run a little faster, and pull away, but the bungee rope was too strong and it started to pull him back. For a whole 10 seconds the spy just tried again to pull away, but he was pulled back again by the rope.

Sam and Max roared with laughter watching the spy trying to run for his life. Sam felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Brammers glaring it him, with Husk standing besides him.

“Where can I find your leader Lore?”

“Erm…in the Fallen Angels Faction office Mr Brammers”, sounding like a guilty child caught red-handed eating a bar of chocolate

Brammers turned and looked at Max. “And do I need to mention that the two of his members cannot follow the council laws of Tech Haven?”

Max let go of the rope.

“Arrrghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!”, screamed the spy, as he went flying head first towards the genrep. There was a thonk as the spy hit the genrep, and the spy knocked himself out cold.

“No sir you don’t”, said Max very quickly.

Brammers looked closely at the two Gentank’s, when the genrep buzzed once again into life. A new runner stepped away, who Brammers immediately recognised.

“Mr Killer, welcome home”

“Greetings Mr Brammers Sir. Hey Husk!”

“Hi mate”, replied Husk.

[TgR]Killer checked his pain easer was loaded and ready. “What’s been going on, I’ve not been able to contact anyone in Tech haven for the last few days. And the word going around Pepper Park is someone blew up the Phoenix store.”

“Your heard right, and that’s not all”

“No shit, Sherlock”, replied [TgR]Killer.

“Come with me, I’m just going to see Lore of FF”

Brammers took a final glance at the two Gentank’s before walking on towards to the Faction offices. Husk also looked at the two Gentank’s, with a look to make the two Gentank’s think twice about doing anything.

Brammers explained as quickly as possible that someone did indeed bomb the Phoenix store. He then explained what had happened to Lisa.

“You think they can get her out? Man I want to give her this Black and Gam-dust nail polish I got for her”. [TgR]Killer showed Brammers the bottle, before putting it back safe in his pocket.”

Brammers smiled. “If there is a chance I’m willing to give it a go. We are about to mount an operation to find her at…or I should say…in Gravis uplink. I’m going to see Lore about taking control of the op, to make life easier for the team that should be at the uplink waiting for my go.”

Husk, [TgR]Killer and Brammers continued to proceed to the Fallen Angels Faction office, which was now a makeshift command centre for all the clan leaders of Twilight Guardian. Many of the clans had lost members in the Neutron bomb attack, and the radiation of the Canyons made it unsafe to remain there.

The three free minds entered the faction office. Husk spotted Lore straight away, and started heading towards where he was sat, with Brammers and [TgR]Killer just a few steps behind.

Lore looked up, “Husk...Killer...Brammers…don’t tell me one of my men have stepped out of line again”

Brammers considered his response for a second before replying. “No not this time.” Husk looked a little puzzled at Brammers for a brief second. “I’ve actually come as the CEO of Phoenix not as Faction Chairman, and require your assistance”

Lore waved his hand “Of course…fire away.”

Brammers explained as quickly that Phoenix Ltd may had located Lisa in the Gravis uplink systems somewhere, but to effectively find her, they needed to take control of the op.

“Gravis… We been getting a few false hack alarms from there… But when we arrive, there is nothing there… And the console has already reset. Hmm the op is yours. Let me inform my sub-leaders to ignore the next lot of alarms from Gravis.”

Husk looked at Brammers with a look of hope. “Could be Lisa trying to get our attention?” Brammers nodded in agreement.

“Done…take the op when you are ready.”

“Thank you Lore”. Brammers opened a com-link to Morpheous. “Ok Morph, you have a go.”

“Roger sir, we are on it.”, replied Morpheous.

“I’ll be down in 30 minutes to see how things are going.”

“Ok sir, I’ll let the team know.”

Brammers turned off the com-link. “Husk, Killer I need to talk to you both about the bombing of the store and...” Brammers voiced tailed off as he noticed all the Clan leaders stood to attention and shouted “Freedom is our law!”

[TgR]Killer was the first to spot the very important person that had stepped into the Faction office, and nudge Brammers to get his attention.

The very import person was Ronald Rodriguez, the Faction Leader of Twilight Guardian, 2nd only in Command to Hagen Yager.

Ronald Rodriguez spotted Brammers and started to walk very quickly towards Brammers.

“Mr Rodriguez sir.”, greeted Brammers.

“Mr Brammers.”, nodded Ronald. “I’ve got some bad news...”

[TgR]Killer and Husk looked at each other, fearing the news neither of them wanted to hear. [TgR]Killer squeezed the bottle of nail polish in his pocket, and closed his eyes.

Ronald continued on. “We have some disturbing intelligence from the Dome. It looks like they will attack Tech Haven next.”

""" Chapter 15 – Gravis Uplink"""

Gravis uplink.

The Drom outside the uplink was munching on the grass, next to a small lake just outside the vast uplink. The uplink had three very large dishes connecting the other uplinks and numerous cable links connecting several other outposts in the nearby regions.

There was a very slight deep rumble, which made the Drom look up slightly. It looked up just enough to see the reflection of the five Rhino’s that had pulled up on the other side of the lake. It looked up further, as two hovertecs whooshed pass the Drom on their way to the entrance of the uplink. The Drom decided it wasn't in the mood today, and belted off into the distance.

In the first Rhino was Morpheous and Maggie Blackstone. They sat in the Rhino waiting for the final go ahead from Brammers. Morpheous got a list of the hackers in the force. A choice of four he had. Himself, Sedna, Kolesar and Garyu69.

The com-link from Tech Haven buzzed in. “Ok Morph, you have a go.”

“Roger sir, we are on it.”, replied Morpheous.

“I’ll be down in 30 minutes to see how things are going.”

“Ok sir, I’ll let the team know.”. The com-link closed.

“Ok Garyu69, can you take 1st layer. Sedna.”

“Sir!”, Sedna buzzed in from the next Rhino.

“You take 2nd layer...let’s get that op... Move in.”

The five Rhino’s all started their engine up and moved towards the uplink. The leading three Rhino’s went around the op to the open entrance. One of them went inside the op, while the other two took a covering position on the back entrance. The remaining two moved to a covering position on the front entrance of the op. Hiro and SanityIsLost was on the Rhino guns on the front entrance, while Renegade and Belkin manned the guns on the two Rhino’s at the back. Maggie Blackstone and Morpheous got out of Rhino in the middle of the op.

Allure and Wraith Nightcaster got out of Belkin’s Rhino, and Sedna got out of the Rhino that was being gunned by Renegade. A hovertec pulled up, and Garyu69 dismounted it.

“Get those layers down, Garyu69, get started.”

Garyu69 went up to the uplink control centre and opened his hacktool. He hoped this time it wasn’t going to crash again. He applied a little lube to the connection point, and plugged in the hacktool lead. Garyu69 pressed the start button and the display sprung into life.

“Sex!” he shouted, and got to work. Sedna looked at him a little amused, awaiting her turn. After thirty seconds, Garyu69 completed his work. “Done!”

Sedna started to get her hacktool ready, when all the sudden the clan com-link burst into life. “Kolesar here, I’m on the hill – we have 2 APC’s incoming, full of Elite storms. Wait...they gone off east.”

“Those storms keep turning up everywhere dude”, Sanityislost replied back. “We saw a group at Tristar at yesterday. They was chilled.”

“Is it me, but are those storms getting everywhere?”, asked Sedna. She opened her hacktool. “Beginning hack...”

“Ever since we had the Twilight Guardian in Tech Haven, City Admin have been just about everywhere in these regions.”, Morpheous replied. “Just hope they keep away from this uplink.”

Sedna closed her hacktool. “Ok got it. Morpheous, you ready?”

“Yeap”. Morpheous got out his new TL150 hacktool he had delivered yesterday. “Got to give this new tool a try out.”, he said grinning widely. He opened the display, and smiled.

A few minutes later the uplink computer systems registered the new owner of the op as Phoenix Ltd. Morpheous closed his hack tool.

“Right we better head down to the main control rooms”

Sedna and Morpheous went to the underground entrance. They climbed the long ladder down, and entered the first main room to the main uplink control room. Morpheous looked at the control panels in the main uplink control room, looking a little puzzled. “Something up Morpheous?” Asked Sedna.

“Yeah. Where to start. Ok we got to get the data being transferred across the link down. Trying to spot fragmented genrep data is going to be hard.”

Morpheous opened his com-link. “Ok someone lock down the genrep to clan only, and no-one from Phoenix is to use the GR.”

“Affirmative Sir.”, was a reply over the com-link.

Morpheous looked at the current transfer rate on the uplink. It was down a little, but it was still too high. Morpheous plugged his hacktool into the uplink, and brought up a list of connections. There was a lot of traffic flowing between Tech Haven and Neocron perhaps a little more than usual.

He called up the data flow rates for between Tech Haven, Foster Uplink and Neocron, which he noted was also busier than normal. He tried to access Crest uplink traffic, but was denied access.

“Who is holding Crest?”

“System Shock.”, came a reply.

“Figures. Right, I need to re-route some of the Tech Haven-Neocron traffic away from this uplink. Time to upset some routing admins in Tech Haven I think.”

Morpheous plugged in another hack tool to the control panels. He opened a link into the Tech Haven routing control links to unbalance the load share. If he could get the data traffic down by 20%, it would make his next part of the plan much easier. He gradually changed the balance on the links to Foster and Crest from 33% to 42% and moved Gravis down from 33% to 20%.

“That’s done…now the hard bit. Searching through 20 terraquads of constantly changing data for any clues.”

Sedna and Morpheous plugged in their hack tools, and started the search for Lisa.

It was going to take a long time.

""" Chapter 16 – Plans"""

In a dimmed room, the clan heads of Fallen Angels sat around the table waiting for Ronald Rodriguez to play the intelligence that they had obtained on the big screen. Husk looked around, to see who from Fallen Angels was also present. He could see Ressi from DoY, Garyu69 from eXo and [TgR]Killer from TgR. Then there was himself from and Brammers from Phoenix.

That meant all the Fallen Angels clans were here. Husk did wonder why Phoenix did have two representatives here for a second, but no-one from the other clans objected, or even commented on that. He also could see Lore of Freedom Force here. However there were still two empty seats, one for Ronald who was standing, and another for someone else. Since all the Fallen Angel clan’s heads were here, he did wonder who the missing person was. Clearly Ronald was waiting for someone to arrive.

Then Husk did a double take, when the last person he was expecting, entered the room. It was Sylvia Bennet of the Fallen Angels Science Council. “Fellow minds and freedom fighters.” she greeted quietly and quickly before sitting down.

“Ok then”, Ronald began. “This footage will be… Shocking in places”, quickly looking at Ressi and Sylvia.

“The following footage was obtained from one of our undercover agents in the Dome, via his RPOS feed. He was posing as a Dome of York guard. Unfortunately he was executed shortly after his signal was discovered, about 2 hours ago. It happened while he was sending this footage.”

Ronald pressed a key on his console, and the big screen behind him lit up with static, before clearing to see two people in a darken room, with a single light shinning in the eyes of a single person, sat on his chair with his hands tied. Stood besides him was the familiar black combat uniform of a Dome of York General. The General punched the prisoner in the face. Sylvia and Ressi flinched.

“Where are the plans for the detonator and data processing unit?”

“We don’t have them… I keep telling you. City Admin hacked and stole the plans.”

“LIES”, shouted the General as he punched the prisoner in the stomach. He groaned in pain.

Husk noticed Syliva quietly tapping away on her console, before she stopped. Her face looked pale as if she had discovered something that was terrifying.

“You think I am a fool?”, shouted the general. "The wastelands best hackers being hacked by Reza’s hackers?”

A guard walked into the room and saluted the general. The general accepted the piece of paper, and read it.

The General looked at the prisoner. “So you are the son of the Chief Systems Administrator of Tech Haven, member of the Science Council.”

All of the members of the Fallen Angels clans did a double take. None of them knew the Chief Systems Administrator in person or seen her, yet alone knew that she had a child. All that was known about her, was that she was the best hacker around, and she was a young woman trapped in a teenagers body by some physical disability.

“...And also it seems you been telling me the truth all along.”, said the General.

“Yes, I keep telling you.”

The general slammed the piece of paper on the table. “My agents in the city tell me that the admin have hacked the plans.” The general struck the prisoner in the face again.

“That’s for being totally incompetent in keeping the plans secure.” The General walked slowly around the room for a few moments. The screen filled with static before clearing again.

“The dome shall wipe the Angels, and Reza’s scum out. For we have nearly completed building two more neutron bombs. In less than 24 hours they will be ready. One will be for Tech Haven. Time to put an end, to the lives of your fellow angels. Oh were the guardian stupid enough to take shelter there? Looks like I'll have the chance to finish the rest of them off at the same time.”

The general took out his gun and aimed it at the head of the prisoner. A shot rang out, and the screen broke into static. The room full of the clan leaders remained in silence, shocked from the brutal footage they had seen. Ronald pressed a button and turned the screen off.

Brammers was the first to break the silence. “Miss Bennet, is that person really who we are told it is.”

Sylvia nodded. “A few hours ago, we received a memo from him. His final one.”

She read it out, “Fellow minds of the council, I have failed in my duty to keep the plans secure. City Admin hackers stole the plans for the bomb. All I wish is for peace. I will be going to the dome to try and tell the dome to tell them that the Admin have the plans. All I can hope is both sides won’t use the bomb, if they both have the bomb. Keep a free mind, signed….” Sylvia looked up from her console.

“The council was trying to start a cold war?”, asked Brammers.

“No”, replied Sylvia. “This action was not sanctioned by the Science council. And we didn’t know anything about this. We also have confirmed that City Admin did hack our systems and they do have copies of the plans to the core of the Neutron bomb.”

“Along with the processor and detonator plans, it seems the City Admin do have a complete set of plans. And we don’t.”, said Brammers.

The room exploded into a mass discussion, on what this would do for Tech Haven, and the future of the Angels. After a few minutes Syliva stood up, and the room quietened down.

“The Science Council have decided to terminate all diplomatic relations with the dome, it was going to come to this anyway, but it looks like it will be sooner than later. Ronald, I believe you have plans to attack the dome?”

“We do, but it requires the forces of several factions.”

Sylvia turned to the clan heads of the Fallen Angels. “I have to ask you all. Would you support the Science Council decision to join the Twilight guardian forces in attacking the Dome?”

All the clan leaders looked uneasy for a few seconds. Ressi was the first to speak. “If our home is threatened, then we must act.”

“You won’t get any argument from me, you have mine and Phoenix’s backing.”. One by one each of the remaining clan leaders gave their support to backing an all out attack on the Dome. It was clear that when the Angel’s home of Tech Haven was under threat, everyone would stand together to fight for their home.

“So what’s the plan?”, asked [TgR]Killer. “You can’t attack the dome at their gates, they see us coming for miles, and they will be ready for us.”

“Correct, so we will use their tunnel network.”, replied Ronald. He clicked on the console, and the big screen on the wall sprung into life showing the map of the north east of the wastelands from Tech Haven.

“As the plans stand now, we will enter the tunnels in F08 and attack the K14 entrance. Tsunami Syndicate will enter the tunnels in F09 and attack the K11 entrance. Crahn will enter the Tunnels in F10 and attack the K16 entrance. I’ve heard that Crahn have asked for Black Dragon to support them, so it’s likely they will be coming as well. The Dome affects their freedom as well, so can we suspend the hostilities between you, the Dragons and Crahn?”

None of the Fallen Angels in the room felt comfortable fighting alongside Crahn and Black Dragon. “If we must….”, said one of the clan leaders.

“We go in about 22:00 tonight, and attack the entrances simultaneously at 06:00. Any more questions?”

Ressi spoke first, “What about Tech Haven, if we are all there, we don’t want to leave it undefended?”

Sylvia replied. “Our defence system can take care of any attackers and hold them if needed.”

“Some of my younger members would be best suited to fighting here, than in the tunnels. And we know the defence system has failed before.”

“I would agree.”, said [TgR]Killer, “And also doesn’t the com-link not work properly in the tunnels? Calling for help will be difficult to impossible.”

“That’s correct.“, replied Ronald. “Ok, a small force shall stay behind in Tech Haven.”

“Final questions?”, asked Ronald. No-one said anything. “Ok get your forces ready”.

Everyone got up. Brammers, Garyu69 and Husk walked quietly into a corner. “If we need everyone to take on the Dome, what about Lisa.”, asked Husk.

“I’ll ask Morpheous what going down there. I will leave a small force there if possible. I’m going to give her every chance we can.”

“Ok sir. We better get down to Gravis and get them all ready.”

""" Chapter 17 – Search at Gravis"""

It was midnight at Gravis Uplink. Sedna and Morpheous had been at the search for nearly 14 hours straight, trying to find Lisa. So far the result was a blank.

The uplink had been deserted for several hours now. All the forces that was here earlier, had been re-assigned to help assault the Dome. Sedna and Morpheous wasn’t totally alone, Allure and Wraith Nightcaster choose to remain at Gravis. Allure requested to remain with Wraith, as she didn’t like the tunnels at all.

If any trouble did arrive the four Angels could call for help from the small force that remained at Tech Haven. While the two monks patrolled the outside of the op, Sedna and Morpheous continued to work underground in the control room.

Sedna got up. “Want a drink?”

“Please Warbot cola.”, replied Morpheous. He pressed a key on his hacktool, and lowered his Neural Lace to start yet another search in another segment of the uplink computers.

“Ok”, smiled Sedna, She really needed to stretch her legs a little. She walked towards the door on the op-room control centre and was about to open it, when she saw something odd in the console in the corner. She stopped to look. It was an old console, which was not supposed to be in use, but it was certainly alive and working. The monitor was showing a pattern of zeros and ones, before it cleared and repeated the same pattern. To Sedna it looked familiar.
Code:
1 0000 0 1101 001 00 1010 101 1000 010 111 011 10 0010 111 1001 0111 001 11 0110 0 100 111 0001 0 010 1 0000 0 0100 01 1100 1011 000 0100 0 0 0110 00 10 110 100 111 110 000

She flicked a switch next to the loudspeaker built into the console, and the room was filled with sounds of beep’s, boop’s and dats.

“Beep Dat Boop Boop Boop Boop Dat Boop Dat Dat Dat Dat Beep Beep Boop Beep Dat Boop Boop Beep Dat Boop Boop Dat Beep Boop Beep Boop Dat Beep Boop Beep Dat Dat Dat Dat Beep Boop Boop Boop Dat Boop Beep Boop Dat Beep Beep Beep Dat Boop Beep Beep Dat Beep Boop Dat Dat Dat Dat Boop Boop Beep Boop Dat Beep Beep Beep Dat Beep Boop Boop Beep Dat Dat Dat Dat Boop Beep Beep Beep Dat Boop Boop Beep Dat Beep Beep Dat Boop Beep Beep Boop Dat Boop Dat Beep Boop Boop Dat Dat Dat Dat Beep Beep Beep Dat Boop Boop Boop Beep Dat Boop Dat Boop Beep Boop Dat Dat Dat Dat Beep Dat Boop Boop Boop Boop Dat Boop Dat Dat Dat Dat Boop Beep Boop Boop Dat Boop Beep Dat Beep Beep Boop Boop Dat Beep Boop Beep Beep Dat Dat Dat Dat Boop Boop Boop Dat Boop Beep Boop Boop Dat Boop Dat Boop Dat Boop Beep Beep Boop Dat Boop Boop Dat Beep Boop Dat Beep Beep Boop Dat Dat Dat Dat Beep Boop Boop Dat Beep Beep Beep Dat Beep Beep Boop Dat Boop Boop Boop”

Morpheous jumped up, “What the hell is that?”

Sedna pointed to the screen. “Does that look familiar?”

Morpheous looked closer at the screen. “It does indeed.” He went and got his hacktool with the crypto software. He pressed a button and he had a copy of the message on his hacktool. “Dam she using that dam code that I can’t crack.”

Morpheous did a quick scan of the codes on his hacktool. “Hmm this message has 26 different sets of codes.”

“Well the alphabet has 26 letters.”, commented Sedna. Morpheous face went a little white. “Oh no. The code is not that simple? If it is, then the simplest trick of code-breaking should had worked. Frequency analysis. Why didn’t I try that?”

Morpheous clicked several keys, and the binary message turned into a badly spelt message. He opened a table on the next screen and swapped a few entries, and re-read the message. It was a perfect crack.

“It’s that simple. Damn why didn’t I think of that before.”, said Morpheous shaking his head.

“Check the message that Garyu69 got.”

Morpheous called up the email and pressed a key to crack it. Straight away it came out as an English sentence. He read it out.

“Garyu69 it is Lisa red nails help I am trapped inside Gravis Uplink”

“That’s Lisa ok, and at least we are looking in the right place for her. Now she must be controlling that console.”, said Sedna. She looked at the console. “Erm the message has changed.”

Sure enough the message had change, to a simple repeating “1010 01”, and the speaker was going “Beep Boop Beep Boop Dat Boop Beep”.

Morpheous pressed a key on his hacktool. “Ermm this isn’t right. It just says C and A, I think the message has got stuck.”

Sedna looked puzzled. “Beep Boop Beep Boop Dat Boop Beep”, the speaker continued to repeat.

“Wait a minute.CA means...”,said Sedna. All the sudden the consoles in the room powered down and reset. A voice came over the speaker, “Primary security barrier disabled. Backup systems enabled.”

“CITY ADMIN?”, said Morpheous and Sedna together.

The two doors in the control room burst open and two Elite Storm bots ran in, and aimed their Plasma cannons ready to fire at the two Angels.

Morpheous and Sedna put their hands up.

“Drop your weapons!”, Shouted the first Elite Storm bot.

Sedna and Morpheous looked at each other. Neither of them where holding what they considered to be weapons. The only thing that they were holding was their hacktools.

“I said put your weapons down…NOW!”

Slowly Morpheous and Sedna dropped their hacktools to the floor.

In the background, a voice said “Backup system disabled.”

Gravis Uplink had fallen to City Admin.

""" Chapter 18 – Unwelcome visitors"""

Wraith Nightcaster and Allure kept watched from the hills overlooking Gravis Uplink. In the darkness they saw the two APC’s arrive. One of them carried four Elite Storm bots and the other one carried four runners.

“What they doing here?”, Asked Allure.
“Don’t know.”, replied Wraith. “And I’m not comfortable with them being here. I just hope they leave the op alone."

Allure strained her eyes to try and identify the faction of the runners. “Looks like a mix of factions. Diamond, Biotech and two City Admin. ”

The group of four runners stood in a circle inside the uplink with the four storm bots. One of the City Admin runners started giving instructions to the group. Wraith managed to overhear what was being said. “You three hack the op, make sure he takes the last layer, otherwise this plan will not work...The fact that it belongs to Phoenix or Fallen Angels is irrelevant. City Admin orders...I don’t care if they sold you 50 Hovertecs at a cheap price to you.”

The leader of the group turned to the Elite Storm Bots. You two keep an eye on the front entrance, and you two watch the back entrance. Before you two start your duties check the underground. I don’t want any surprises.”. Wraith flinched when he recognised the leader. “That’s Agent Foster of City Admin. He’s one nasty piece of work I heard.”

The four Elite Storm bots nodded and moved to their positions. Two of them stood guard at the front of the outpost, while the other two Storm went down into the underground of the uplink.

The leader turned to the other three runners, “Ok you lot, get ready to start the hack.”

Allure and Wraith looked at each other. “We got to stop them.”, said Wraith.

Allure pointed to the back entrance. “They left the back entrance un-guarded. So long as those guards don’t get involved too fast I can take all four of them out.”

Wraith nodded in agreement. “Ok get ready to do your worst.”. Wraith silently whispered to himself, as he cast shelter and deflector on himself and Allure. “Go!”

Like air in the wind, the two monks ran silently down the hill towards the back entrance of Gravis uplink. With their backs pressed up against the wall, Wraith once again overheard the conversation inside the op.

“Layer one down.”

“Good, now get the seconds and third down. We have not much time left. Oh great, those storm bots have found two Angels in the underground. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Wraith heard the footsteps of the leader walking away. Allure put three fingers up. Wraith nodded.

Allure gave a silent countdown with her fingers. Three...two...one!

Wraith and Allure ran into the op towards the hack room. “Layer two down...what the...”

“Lampo Santo!”, whispered Allure to herself. A bolt of lighting struck the second hacker, and sent him flying from the console. The other two spy’s drew their Pain Easers rifles out, and started to shoot Allure and Wraith. The bullets deflected off the invisible shield surrounding the two monks.

“Parassita mortale!”. A green mist filled the hack room, and the three hackers started to shake violently and turn green. One of the hackers yelled in pain as the poison proved too much for him. Wraith threw a heal over Allure and himself. “Tempesta del fuoco!” Now the floor of the hack room was on fire. The three spies screamed in pain, before all falling over. All that was left was three smouldering corpses.

“Freeze!”, shouted one of the Elite Storm bots guarding the front, who had come to check on the noises. But it was no use. The two monks jumped over the wall and disappeared into the night.

The Elite Storm bot, surveyed the hack room. The bot opened a channel on his com-link. “Agent Foster, report to the surface.”

After a minute, Agent Foster appeared from the underground entrance. “What is it?”

“Sir I regret two monks killed the hack team, and got away.”, reported the Elite Storm Bot.

“Idiots! Consider your promotion to the 44th cancelled. Get on the com link and get another team here fast we are running out of time. And cover both the front AND back entrances this time.” Agent Foster stormed off back to the underground.

Agent foster climbed down the ladder feeling very angry. He went into the room containing Sedna, Morpheous and the two other Elite Storm bots.

He slammed the table with his fist. “Two of your friends just killed my team.” Sedna flinched, while Morpheous grinned slightly. They both knew that Allure and Wraith stopped the hackers just in time to prevent the final layer being hacked.

“You, go up to the uplink and assist the other two other useless muppets of your team. I don’t want any more surprises.”, barked Agent Foster at the 2nd Elite Storm Bot.

Agent Foster walked slowly around the two Angels. “You two better tell me why you are here, and not with that strike force thats about to hit the Dome. And if you don’t talk, I shall start making things...unpleasant.”

""" Chapter 19 - Meanwhile, at Tristar - Written by Siygess"""

The walls of Tristar Uplink shook with the impact of another salvo of micro-missiles as the small unit of DoY Scout Bots made another attempt to breach the perimeter of the outpost. Outside, the roar of gunfire from the defenders was deafening, but inside the terminal room, it was muted - as much a part of the background noise as the low hum from the terminals themselves. The concrete dust falling from the ceiling was annoying though.

Praetorian coughed once, but didn't let the dust distract him from the task at hand - hacking the last layer of the outpost. The previous owners had installed additional security around the remaining layer and it was taking longer than normal to bring the outpost under City Admin control. Idly, Katherine wandered over to the terminal and wiped the dust from the screen with her bare hand. The mass of glowing lines might have confused most, but she was familiar enough with the process to see that slowly, he was gaining the upper hand.

With a sigh, she turned from the console and cradled her rifle between her arms, then walked back to the doorway. Lazlo looked up from his Speed Gat, gave her a bored shrug and went back to spinning the barrels. They were both meant to be covering the chief's back, but so far, the Bots hadn't even found their way into the complex. With their numbers dwindling, it was looking increasingly likely that they wouldn't make it in at all.

Still, they were behind schedule.

"Hey, guys - I'm getting some com-chatter from Gravis." came a voice over her headset. Katherine looked around, then stepped out of the terminal room.

"And?" she demanded.

"Uh, their hackers are all KIA. Seems like the Angels had the Op and didn't want to give it back." replied Braxton.

Katherine glanced back in the room. Lazlo was watching the green lights dance across the computer screen, and Praetorian was still working at the last barrier. She glanced at her watch. Twenty minutes behind schedule. Damn.

"How’s the Crest team doing?" she asked. Braxton laughed.

"Waaay ahead of you. The cavalry's there but they be waiting for their merc hackers to arrive. Hawkins team isn't even inside the facility yet."

Katherine swore. There was now a real danger that they would start loosing control of the Uplinks before they had a chance to transmit the code. They were running out of time.

"Kat, take Laz and Braxton down to Gravis and give them a hand."

Surprised, Katherine turned to see Praetorian set the hacktool on the terminal and rub his eyes. The web of green lines on the terminal screen had been replaced with a message that read

LAYER DOWN. TRANSFERRING UPLINK OWNERSHIP AND RESETTING SECURITY PROTOCOLS.

"Aye sir!" she replied. Happy that they were finally going to do something, Lazlo joined her in the hallway and together they began running towards the exit.

"Braxton, prep your car and meet us at the perimeter. We're going to Gravis."

--

Outside, the fighting had died down, and the hackers were already picking through the smouldering remains of the attacking force while Sephyria and a number of the more experienced members kept watch. Katherine and Lazlo ran across the open ground and caught up with Braxton outside the Uplink's walls.

"Dude!" he exclaimed as they approached, scanning the dunes around the front of the Uplink. "Where's my car?"

As if on cue, the sound of tearing metal and rushing wind made them look skywards just in time to see the ragged silhouette of a Wheeler hurtling towards them. They could do nothing but watch as it landed on its side with a crunch, ploughed into the sand and slowly came to a halt a few feet away. Before the sand had time to settle, the chassis groaned and the car rolled onto its roof. One of the wheels fell off and the car alarm belatedly sprung into life.

As one, they turned to look in the direction the car had come from. At first they could see nothing through the heat haze of the desert, but soon a blurry form took shape accompanied by an angry bellow. When the ground began to shake, they realised it heralded the approach of one of the nastier denizens of the wastelands - a Decayed Brute. Comically, it had part of the rear axle dangling from its mouth, and that seemed to push the Gen Tank over the edge.

Braxton yelled something that couldn't be heard over the noise of the car alarm, and un-slung his rocket launcher.

"Let's leave him to it!" Kat yelled to Lazlo. She wasn't sure he heard her, but her hand gestures must have been enough. They darted around the corner and picked their way through the other vehicles belonging to the clan before climbing into Katherine's Reveller. She dropped her rifle into the passenger seat and started the engine, slammed it into reverse and put her foot down on the accelerator - the engine roared into life and propelled the vehicle away from the wall. As soon as the vehicle was clear of the others, she spanned it round to face south, changing gear at the same time, and took off without loosing any momentum.

"You've been taking lessons, haven't you?" laughed Laz from the gunner seat above her.

Katherine grinned, changed up a gear and floored the accelerator.

""" Chapter 20 - Rescue plans"""

“Well Wraith, I have to give it to you…this is the most unusual hiding place I have ever been in.”, Allure said.

The Drom next to Allure let off a low moan. “Hiding in a herd of Droms is the last place I would ever think of hiding.”

Sure enough Allure and Wraith were hiding in a herd of over one hundred Droms. “I could tell you a lot of things about Droms…”, started Wraith.

“I don’t want to know.”, Allure quickly said. “Have you got hold of Tech Haven for backup?”

“No.”, said Wraith. “There is no response. I hope they aren’t in trouble.”

“What we do, head back to Tech Haven for help?”

“There is no time. If Agent Foster has Elite Storm bots at his disposal, there is no telling what they will do to Sedna and Morpheous. We need a plan to get them out.”

Allure looked around her and smiled. “Wraith…I have an idea.”

---

Agent foster slapped Sedna hard in the face. “Tell me when the forces went in the tunnels.”

Sedna spat back at her interrogator. “I am not telling you anything you bastard!”, he wiped the spit of his face. “You will wish you never did that.”

The portable radio handset on the table crackled into life. “Agent Foster, the backup team is coming and will be here in five minutes.”

He picked up the radio handset and pressed a button. “About time to.”, snapped Agent Foster.

“And sir…we have an unusual problem. Erm…there is a herd of Droms in the uplink.”

Sedna and Morpheous looked at each other in bewilderment.

“This is no time for Jokes.”, growled Agent Foster. “I’m coming up in five minutes, so I can organise the next hack team. We are going to be very tight for time.”

Agent Foster went to the door leading to the corridor of the uplink, and opened the door. There stood two monks Allure and Wraith. Allure whispered silently to herself and push her hand sharply forward, and let of a force of lightning which sent Agent Foster flying backwards and slamming into the uplink console panels. Agent Foster was out cold.

The remaining Storm bot started to aim his Plasma cannon, only to be frozen on the spot by Wraith’s paralysing spell. Allure whispered something different and the Elite Storm Bot was struck repeatedly by Allure’s very powerful Holy Lightning spell, before he fell over unconscious.

“Thank Crahn you two are here. Err, by the way, Droms?”, Asked Sedna.

“Yeap.”, Grinned Wraith. “There is a herd of Droms in the op. It was Allure’s idea to herd the Droms into the op, and distract the guards, while we sneaked down here.”

Morpheous walked over to the old console that was active earlier, which Lisa was somehow using it to communicate to them earlier. It was now lifeless. His heart sank.

“We got to get out of here before those guards come down.”, Allure said. “We are going to sneak through the op to the Genrep room outside the uplink, using the Droms as cover.”

“Come on, we don’t have much time.”

---

Katherine Mayer was driving her Reveller flat out towards Gravis Uplink. She had never driven her Reveller this hard and fast for a long time. The Reveller launched off a bump into the air, before landing hard again on the ground.

”Careful Kat, you going to bust the suspension on this.”, shouted Lazlo from the gunner seat.

“Don’t worry, it has a lifetime guarantee.”

The Reveller flew over another bump and started heading downhill towards Gravis Uplink. Ahead of them was a herd of Droms coming out of the uplink.

“Hmm Droms are good. Don't you think Kat?”, smiled Lazlo. Katherine didn’t think so. She flicked a switch on her dash and turned on the extra spotlights she had fitted to the Reveller, and held down the horn on the steering control.

The Droms scattered in all directions as if a Decayed Brute had arrived for his Breakfast, to reveal four runners crouching and sneaking towards the genrep. “Freeze”, shouted the Elite Storm bot at the entrance of the uplink. All four runners started making a run towards the Genrep room.

Katherine dropped down a gear, while Lazlo swung his Reveller gun around to take aim at the escaping Angels. He fired at the monk at the front, only for the monk to wave his hand and a white shield appeared around him. The 30mm bullets deflected off the leading monk into the air.

“Damn PPU’s”, Shouted Lazlo, as he took aim on the second runner. He fired and the earth on the ground right behind the second runner started to fly up into the air.

Wraith was leading the line of running Angels, followed by Morpheous, Sedna and Allure, towards the genrep room. The Elite Storm Bot fired and hit Allure. She fell over and let out a cry. Wraith turned around and quickly cast a heal on Allure, while Sedna and Morpheous ran straight past Wraith, with 30 mm bullets flying all around them.

Morpheous hit the controls on Genrep and selected Tech Haven as fast as he could. His molecules disappeared into a stream of matter. Sedna arrived a second later at the controls of the genrep. She selected Tech Haven and looked around to see the chasing Reveller doing a powerslide towards Wraith who had managed to pull up Allure. In a brief second Sedna worked out that Allure and Wraith could just make it to the Genrep room before the Reveller ran them over. Then she saw the gun of the reveller taking aim at her. She saw Lazlo starting to press the trigger on the gun. Sedna hit the genrep controls.

Sedna saw the Genrep room of Gravis Uplink disappeared from existence and Tech Haven Sector 2 materialise around her. She stepped quickly away from the Genrep to allow Wraith and Allure to materialise through.

Morpheous stood beside Sedna. The Genrep did not fizzle into life.

“Where are they?”, asked Sedna.

“Shhh!” Said Morpheous quickly. “Listen carefully”.

Sedna listened. She could hear nothing. “That’s not right.”. She couldn’t hear the steady hum of the Tech Haven power systems. She looked down at the Tech Haven security turret next to the Genrep. It looked lifeless, without it’s power source.

“FREEZE!”. Two Elite Storm Bots stood at the end of the Genrep room aiming their plasma cannons at them.

Sedna and Morpheous raised their hands into the air.

""" Chapter 21 - The Dark side of the Tunnels"""

The Dome of York guard stood at the bottom of the ladder in the dark tunnel network. To him, this was about the worse job that any member of the Dome of York, Combine Guardian Division could ever get. Guard duty in the Dome of York tunnels. Quite simply, standing in a poorly lit tunnel with no radio contact to the surface was not fun at all. The only rewarding part of the job was being able to kill on sight anyone other than the military.

He looked down the tunnel into the darkness, and spotted a red dot down. One of the defence units must be making it's rounds down this part of the tunnel network, he thought to himself. The guard relaxed for a brief second, until he noticed something odd about the movement of the red dot.

The red dot moved sharply upwards. The guard began to feel uneasy. He checked his ray gun rifle, and looked down the tunnel. The red dot was rapidly moving towards him at high speed. He thought this defence unit must either have high speed tracks fitted, or had malfunctioned. The next thing he saw was the letters O-N-O-Z written on the side of a Revenge drone, coming to a rapid stop right next to him. He drew his gun level with the drone, but he was not quick enough.

The blast force of the exploding Revenge drone threw him down the tunnel corridor to the next intersection into the direct line of fire of a private eye waiting around the corner. Lying on his back he saw the private eye in his power armour squeezed the trigger on his pain easer. Close to death the guard closed his eyes waiting for the end. He then heard a click, and then the private eye mutter "Shit!" to himself.

The guard’s eyes snapped open. He swung his legs around, and booted the private eye square in the chest to send him flying backwards into the wall of the tunnels. Then he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He did not feel the Blade of Ceres piercing his body. The last thing he remembered was seeing the blade glitter in the low light of the tunnels.

The GenTank pull his weapon out and wiped it on the clothes of the dead guard. "You alright there?"

"Yeah...thanks Hiro I owe you one."
"It's ok.", smiled Hiro. He pulled the PE up.

Hiro Protagonist Blackstone heard the sound of several fusion cannons being fired at once. He looked down the corridor to see several fusion blasts hitting the wall at the next intersection, followed by a shower of metal from a destroyed Defence unit hitting the wall.

Hiro's com-link fuzzed into life. He barely heard someone say "That’s the last of them.". Then the com-link fuzzed into life again. "Group...fuzz...tunnel exit....fuzz...5...fuzzz".

Hiro looked around, and saw Brammers come up down the tunnel in is power armour. "Good work. If I heard the com-link correctly we are to meet at the exit for the final assault."

Brammers evaluated the current state of affairs. They had gone underground just under 8 hours ago for the assault on the Dome of York. The assault teams consisting of clans from Twilight Guardian and Fallen Angels had made good progress with minimum casualties to the alliance. The teams and groups of Dome of York guards, and defence units fell very fast under the huge firepower and numbers. At one point a GenTank commented that there was about 50 red dots from all the laser pointers of the weapons, just focused on one guard at a crossroads. Although Brammers did wonder if the GenTank could count that fast before the Dome of York guard was turned into Swiss cheese, yet alone how the GenTank counted all the way up to 50.

The next step of the plan was to emerge from the tunnels, and assault the Dome of York entrance at K14. The Tsunami Syndicate forces would take on the entrance at K11 and the combined forces of Black Dragon and Crahn would take on the entrance at K16. The Twilight Guardian forces would have a slightly harder job, as their tunnel stopped one zone short of K14, so they would have to make a fast run across the desert to the entrance. Brammers made his way to the exit of the Tunnels to meet Ronald Rodriguez.

"Mr Rodriguez Sir.", greeted Brammers.

"One moment Brammers, we got a couple of stealthers checking the outside, and the entrance, but they are taking their time."

Brammers nodded, when he noticed Hiro pull out his Coursed Soul, and take aim at the wall. Brammers looked around to see a blue haze in the air, just in front of Hiro. Out of thin air, a runner appeared. Hiro put his cursed soul away. "Sorry mate."

"That’s ok.", replied the spy. He turned to Ronald. "Sir! I can report there are no DoY forces on the top, and it's still dark."

"Excellent, we have achieved surprise.", replied Ronald.

"My Brother has gone to check the main entrance in K14, he will in a few minutes. However there are some odd things Sir. First when I got up there I had a load of queued messages from our automated monitoring systems. While we where underground, three of our ops have been taken by City Admin. I checked further and it was the following Cajun, Tescom and Tristar."

"Cheeky Admin, taking our uplinks.", retorted Ronald.

The spy looked at Ronald for a second. He then stood still for a few seconds as if he was doing some mental checking, "Sir...there is more. All the uplinks are under City Admin control."

"That doesn't make any sense.", replied Ronald looking puzzled.

Brammers looked alarmed. Had Morpheous and Sedna got Lisa out of Gravis uplink before City Admin took the op? He would be having some serious words with Praetorian of TGM if they had took the op from Phoenix without permission. The only way he was going to find out was to contact the team left at Tech Haven, but that would mean breaking radio silence on the com-link. Brammers spotted another blue haze come down the ladder, and once again, it morphed into a friendly runner.

"Hey there.", replied the second spy. "Got to the entrance, they have their normal 3 guards there, but I think they know we are coming. As I was leaving a klaxon alarm went off."

"Crap there goes our surprise attack” Replied Ronald. "OK LETS MOVE IT, WE ARE GOING IN"

There was a sound of weapons being checked and reload, and shouts of "GO GO GO!", and "Lets kick some ass."

Runners surged past Brammers up the ladder to the surface. He waited for a group of young GenTanks wearing red shirts to go up to the topside, before following them with most of Phoenix behind him.

They got outside the tunnel entrance. Brammers looked to the North to see the glow of the lights coming from the city inside the Dome of York. It was a clear night, as he could count all of the 15 smaller glass domes protecting the smaller sectors of Dome of York, while the larger glass dome covered the City Centre sector.

Suddenly there was a bright and very intense flash from the biggest dome. It shattered into several thousand pieces, before exploding skywards. The ground started to shake, and there was a deafening crack. On the horizon he could see a wall of sand coming towards them at high speed, when there was a second brighter flash from the dome.

Brammers turned around, and saw his own sharp shadow cast in the sand. Night had turned into day. He felt the back of his power armour starting to warm up. Whatever was going on in the Dome was not good. Brammers waved to tell everyone to get back down into the tunnel. He ran into the shaking tunnel dome entrance and jumped down the ladder.

There was a deafening roar as the wall of sand rumbled over, and the tunnels shook even more violently. Brammers felt his back starting to burn. He did not remember what happened next.

""" Chapter 22 – Blood sunrise"""

"Brammers Sir?", he heard a voice.

Brammers opened his eyes. He was no longer wearing his power armour, but he could see he was still in the tunnels. Maggie Blackstone cast a heal on him. He tried to move, but he felt weak.

"Try not to move sir."

"Maggie, excuse me what I am about to say, but what the hell happened?"

"We don’t know sir. You just pasted out, and the back of your PA is almost melted. There are several teams topside checking the area and the Dome, but from what I've seen... It's damn ugly."

"How long have I've been out?"

"About two hours. Sir"

Brammers stuggled to get up, "I need to go topside."

After about ten minutes of resting, Brammers’ strength returned. He needed help getting up the ladder to the topside of the tunnels. He emerged from the tunnel entrance to a scorched red sky. A sky he had never seen before. To the north he could see the Dome of York with glows of red from the fires that raged inside. None of the domes that protected the Dome of York could be seen. Littered over the desert, lay burnt corpses, some of them where still burning.

He was joined by Husk, [TgR]Killer and Garyu69. All of them looked to the North in total silence, trying to comprehend what had happened.

Brammers saw Ronald approach him, looking very grave.

"What happened here?", Brammers asked.

"Two neutron bombs where detonated inside the Dome. What we don’t know if it was an accident or deliberate."

"My Crahn...and the residents of the Dome??"

Ronald looked down, before recomposing himself. "All dead, except for a few survivors we are finding in pockets of the Dome."

"And the attacking forces?"

"All alive, but very shaken up. We had reports of minimum casualties. Seems most of the forces was underground when the blasts happened."

A spy came up to Ronald and whispered in his ear. "What?", exclaimed Ronald. "You better repeat that for the Chairman of Fallen Angels here."

The spy turned towards Brammers. "Sorry Sir. Sir...I regret to inform you, that we have confirmed reports that City Admin has taken control of Tech Haven."

Brammers closed his eyes. Dome of York lay in Ruins, and Tech Haven had fallen.

""" Chapter 23 - The lost world"""

Maggie Blackstone and Lisa Merlins looked at each other in horror, as the ground floor of the store was now ablaze in a fire of molten Gaminion, and the transparent Arillium floor was now bubbling.

Maggie started making a run for the Genrep, which was just a few metres away. Lisa was not far behind. Whatever this bomb was going to do to the store, they weren’t going up with it.

Maggie opened the genrep console and selected the first free genrep she could find – Tech Haven Sector 2 – Genrep A, and she just hoped whatever was happening in the store was going to be contained within the Phoenix Store and Tech Haven Sector 1. In a brief second Maggie’s molecules disappeared into a steam of genes, unseen by the human eye.

Suddenly the store became very dark except for a bright single point of light. In the darkness one could see pools of superheated Arillium and melted cabinets. Lisa turned around briefly to see the bright single point of light.

The single point of light began to flicker. Lisa turned around and clicked on the Genrep console and quickly selected her apartment in Plaza 2.

The world turned white all around her. She looked around. This was not a normal Genrep trip something was wrong. Had she just left it too late? Then on her left, a portal opened and she could see the partial world of Simons Factory Genrep partially merging in against white void. Then she looked right. Another portal had opened and another world had partially appeared against the white void.

She tried to make out where the second world was. She spotted a mast in the distance, and an outline of the small path, which she recalled lead to Tech Haven. “Tyron Factory”, thought Lisa. “Am I going to see any other worlds?”, She asked herself. There was certainly enough space in the great white void for plenty of more portals to the other worlds.

Then all the sudden an invisible force tugged her belt, and then ripped it off her. It flew over towards the Simons Portal, and evaporated in a white flash as soon as it hit the portal. Then the two portals started to swing around towards each other. More of her personal belong started flying towards each portal and evaporating in a white flash as soon as it hit the portal. She then saw her hacktool, her armour, and then her Dalchi Red Nailpolish, all flying towards each portal. Thinking quickly, she grabbed and held her holy lighting spell, hoping the force that was taking and destroying her possessions could not take her holy lighting from her.

The two portals continued to swing around towards each other and merge into one portal. Lisa looked at the merged portal. Both the worlds of Simons and Tyron were there now. Suddenly her hand opened involuntary and her holy lightning spell flew out of her grip towards the merged portal. Lisa watched in slow motion the spell flying through the air and hit the portal.

However, the holy lightning spell did not evaporate in a white flash like her other possessions, but it looked like it landed in the embankment of Simons, and stop. Then she saw what looked like a second holy lightning continue on from the same spot and land in the grass of Tyron. This was not making any sense to Lisa, and now, she had none of her personal belongings left on her. If anything was to attack her, she doubted she would live to tell the tale.

Then the two merged portals disappeared in a black flash. Lisa was standing alone again in the vast white void. She looked around to see if there was anything different.

The white void disappeared, and she was now looking down at a glowing blue floor, which had a pattern that looked like a circuit board that she had seen in Helios, the massive computer that Morpheous had built some time ago.

She moved her head a little, and she could see tiny white pulses flowing in the smaller connecting circuits, which connected to larger flowing pulses. She followed the path of the pulses, only for something to catch the corner of her eye.

Lisa looked up and gasped at the mighty structure. She could see a face that was held in an octagon that was surrounded by a bubble, and held in place by a box. Holding the box was lot of white pulsating tentacles that seem to be connecting to the floor. Now and again a tentacle would move away from holding the box and connect with a node at the side, and flow with pulses. Lisa assumed that the nodes were data connection ports, assuming she was inside a computer, if that was possible. The face moved and looked at Lisa.

"RI-6 online", the face spoke in a soft female voice. Lisa didn't have a clue what that meant. "RI-2 transfer to the central core"

There was a white brief flash behind her, and a voice spoke.

"Welcome to our world."

""" Chapter 24 - Saving binary"""

Lisa spun around to see what looked like a glowing male spy, but he was semi-transparent.

"Who are you?", Lisa asked.

"I am RI2. From your world I was called Janos Blake"

Lisa thought for a second. She had heard the name before, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She thought hard for a second, and she notice the flowing pulses around her starting to slow down.

"Don't think too hard RI6 we don't have that many resources to keep your RI running."

"RI?", Lisa quizzed.

"Real Intelligence.”, Janos began to explain.” Humans spend a lot of time trying to create the perfect artificial Intelligence, which I have to say has never come close to simulating a human being. However with a bit of help with venture warp and genrep technology, and a very simple emulator, it's possible to run a complete human mind inside a mainframe. However there is an odd side effect. Unused parts of the mind or lost memories consume a lot more processing power. Did you see all those packets move a lot slower before I told you to stop thinking?"

Lisa looked around, and she did notice the pulses in the floor moving a lot faster than a second ago. She was still thinking, Janos Blake. Where had she heard that name before?

"RI6, please tell me what you are thinking?", asked Janos.

"I am trying to think where I have heard your name before, and also I am a girl, not a RI number!", she said firmly.

Janos turned to the face. "No.1 create symlink for RI6"

"Symlink Lisa Merlins created to RI6", replied the face.

"That's better, now you are Lisa Merlins, like in the real world. If I remember you are a PSI monk, not a hacker?"

"Well I can hack a few things, but I'm nowhere near as good as Morpheous. And who are you, since you know me, and I don't."

"I was the lead of CVOR which was part of GTL Inc. If you know your history, GTL was the trading name of Phoenix before it moved from Tangent to Fallen Angels. I did not move to Phoenix, I was recruited to NCPD Precinct 1."

Something clicked in Lisa mind. "Ahh I remember, Alan Parker said you disappeared in the North Wastelands?"

"Almost correct. I was hacking the genrep data to track down some criminals, when...well I just ended up here. Since then we have been monitoring all the factions for anything interesting and changing things when necessary. That reminds me."

Janos turned to the face, "No.1 explain why we did not get Morpheous?"

"Unexpected real world events left No.1 with limited options. The bomb attack at the Phoenix store was unexpected. No.1 predicted accuracy that the bomb would cause severe disruption to the Tech Haven genrep and data networks. No.1 predicted repair time of Tech Haven genrep and data networks was estimated to be 6 hours. Suggested rapid course of action was to retrieve another suitable runner for mission from genrep steams. Runner Lisa Merlins fitted the required criteria with a score of 50%".

A screen slid in on the left showing a technician working on some data conducts in Tech Haven at very high speed, then there was some sparks and a small fire. The technician disappeared, and then there was a white cloud of CO2 extinguishing the flames.

"Update on repair time of Tech Haven genrep and data networks is estimated to be 48 hours.", the screen disappeared. Janos sighed.

Lisa looked at No.1, "Can I ask a question?"

"Proceed", replied the face of No.1

"Who bombed the Phoenix store?"

"No.1 does not have information available to answer the question set by RI6."

"Damn...ok 2nd thing, did I hear you correctly, you said mission?"

"No. 1 has tasked units RI2 and RI4 with mission briefing. RI4 unit is currently in a disconnected node. RI2 Unit estimated time of arrival 12 hours.", replied the face.

"Ok how do I know that you are not the bad guys?”

“All I can say is keep a free mind Lisa and this mission does effect the future of Fallen Angels, and also the future of our world. Now you ready to listen, we do not have much time.”

Lisa nodded, and a second screen appeared showing the Twilight Guardian Canyons, which looked busy with people moving around. Then all the sudden there was a white flash, followed by static, as if the camera feed had been cut.

"Three weeks ago the Dome of York bombed the Canyon with a Neutron bomb. Lots of lives were lost, as you know. What you don't know is lives were also lost in our world. The segment connecting the Twilight Guardian Canyons was destroyed. Many AI's were lost. One of the RI's was also lost, and many CI's disappeared as well. CI's are copies of intelligences of hacker runners, under control of No.1. There are other losses as well and it's a long list. Mind if I skip that, as we are low on time."

Lisa once again nodded, and Janos continued. "After studying the data available we established the Neutron bomb seems to effect our world as well, when they should not. A neutron bomb is designed to kill just people, and leave equipment undamaged."

The screen started to show new footage of runners fighting Dome of York Defence bots in the desert. Then the scene cut to fighting inside a lab, which Lisa recognised the Neutron bomb design lab.

"Then the Fallen Angels, with the help of other factions attacked and stormed the lab. The Fallen Angels recovered two of the four blueprints required to make a neutron bomb. However City Admin recovered the codes and detonator for the neutron bomb.

The scene on the screen changed to sure Fallen Angels technicians storing blueprints in the secure network, which then cut to another room that looked like a conference room in Plaza. Then it changed to what looked like a Tech Haven style apartment full of equipment and screens.

“The Fallen Angels with the Twilight Guardian secured the blueprints in their most secure computer system, under the guidance of the system administrator’s son. However, it seemed City Admin had managed to get a link into this system. We spotted this weak link and broke into the system ourselves before City Admin did. To protect our future we overwrote the plans with fake plans and watched. Creating junk data for an identical MD5 hash is certainly a little challenge.” Lisa looked at the emotionless Janos figure. If he was smiling she couldn’t see him smiling.

“So you saying that Fallen Angels have no blueprints?”. Asked Lisa.

“That’s correct.”, replied Janos.

”Something tells me there is a but coming. For a start if no-one has any plans a neutron bomb can’t be built? Which means your world is safe?”

“Very good Lisa, but there are two problems. One caused by our actions.”

Lisa shook her head as if she had seen that one coming. Janos continued. “The first is that the dome has nearly completed two more bombs. We don’t know the targets for them. No.1 predicts that their targets are Neocron city and Tech Haven, which if they hit those locations it will spell disaster for our world.”

“And for the people living there as well.”, replied Lisa.

”Then we learnt that City Admin had hacked our fake blueprints. That was predicted, and expected. But we did not even predict City Admin’s next move. They soon discovered the blueprints where fakes, and then devised a new plan.” The screen changed to a slideshow, which Lisa recognised as the uplink outposts.

“Their new plan is to use the uplinks to tap into the Dome of York and remote detonate the bombs. That would destroy the Dome… And also our world.”

“Sounds like either option is not good. Where do I fit into this?”

”Quite simply you are the messenger to the outside world. First of all to prevent the detonation codes being sent to the Dome. Then your next task is to safely destroy the Neutron bombs.”

“If you overwrote the plans, can’t you destroy the detonation codes?”

“No. City Admin put the codes in a non-connected system.”

“Ok, so I have to get hold of these codes, or stop them using the uplinks, then destroy the Neutron bombs. I hate to say this, but I’m no Supergirl.”

“Of course not. You would have to talk to Brammers or someone high up in Fallen Angels, and get them to stop these bombs from going off.”

“Hmm, but Brammers would require some proof.”

“We know Brammers well, and as a result we will send you back with a very unique item from RI4, when he gets here.”. The screen flickered to show a meeting in the Fallen Angels Faction Hall. Lisa could see everyone clapping and Lupus Wonderboy putting medals around five people’s necks. She recognised, Brammers, Cybot, [TgR]Killer, and Husk showing their medals as the camera slowly panned down the line.

”Those are Free Thinker medals? A copy is not going to help convince anyone.”

The camera slowly continued to pan. “How about if we gave you RI4’s medal to take back?” A fifth runner panned into view. Lisa gasped as she recognised the runner. Then something clicked in her mind as she made a connection between the Free Thinker medal, an unsolved mystery and RI4. Then Lisa noticed all the packets in the world moving very slowly, and Janos stopped moving.

All the sudden the room went blank.

""" Chapter 25 - You got mail"""

The blank world remained blank for a time that Lisa could not define. Then an orange dot appeared at Lisa’s feet and expanded into a path that lead a short way. Two branches lead off, and two rather white looking objects appeared. Then she could see a vast gap and a platform in the distance.

Lisa first walked up to the two white objects. Close up they looked like old computer consoles. On one of the consoles a button was flashing. Lisa looked into the distance to the platform across the void. She could see a white glow that resembled a genrep, and a lot of moving pulses towards the genrep. She was no longer with No.1 or Janos, and she certainly didn’t have a clue where she was.

Lisa looked at the flashing button on the console. Well the worse thing she could do now was press the button. She walked up to the console and pressed the button. A screen slid up from the back of the console. A digital face appeared, that Lisa could not identify.

“Ahh Lisa, you are back online. It’s Janos here.”

“Did something happen?”, enquired Lisa.

“Yes….you thought too hard. You nearly consumed all the resources available to the world. There was a slight flaw in the emulation software, which No.1 has now corrected. And there is bonus side effect of correcting the flaw. The software can cope with many more runners. No.1 now has plans to allow the whole world access to our world, well some parts of it. Anyway enough of that, we still need you to complete your task. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was saying that Brammers’s will need proof.”

“Nothing about RI4?”, asked Janos. Lisa shook her head.

“Ok we was going to send an item from RI4 but he’s still lost in a disconnected node, and time is against us. Twelve hours has passed since I last spoke to you.”

Twelve hours had passed since she saw the store, Lisa thought to herself. It only felt like twenty minutes.

I’m afraid bringing proof to Brammers will be difficult. Right now we moved your program to Gravis uplink. What you need to do is get to that genrep over there and get the message… WAIT!”

Before Janos could finish saying, “Wait”, Lisa had walked to the edge of the Abyss and put her hand out. She was stopped by an invisible force field.

“As I was about to say. The security barrier is enabled, and the hard wire link is not connected. Look up.”

Lisa looked up. High up she could see a platform that was red in colour. “That platform needs to be lowered. However it’s a hard wired system, which we cannot control. It can be lowered by flipping the switch on console 7 in the uplink underground. Once the platform is lowered, just use the GR and you are out of here.”

“I sense ‘a but’ coming?”, said Lisa.

“Almost. The other console controls the email to Tech Haven, so getting a message to someone there should be easy. Get them to take control of the op and get them to flip the switch.”

Lisa nodded. “Right I have to go Lisa and prepare for Plan C, good luck Lisa!”

“Wait!”, Lisa shouted, but it was too late. The image on the screen had gone. She had a few more questions.

Well there was not much else she could do. This place seems to be devoid of all activity, except for what was happening across the abyss. She walked over to the second console. There was only one button on this console, which she touched. Two more buttons appeared on the console, and once again a screen slid up from the back of the console, then two smaller screens expanded out from each side of the first big screen. The screen on the left lit up displaying a load of static, and the screen on the right came up with a prompt, that just said “RDY”. Then the middle screen came up with what looked like a load of options. She tried to make out what was on the screen.
Code:
HrEEDoM PHORC3 9R4V15 uPliNK U83r h4x0r 50F+wAr3
0p+i0ns
1. W4k3 b055 4ND +35+ NI9H+ $H1pHT R35P0N$E
2. WE8C4M L1NK$
3. LInK +0 9r@v15 uplINk-+eChh4V3N m4Il +R4N5F3r 4gENt
4. cl05E

Lisa frowned. Where was her Fire Apoc when she needed it? She gave the console a good kick. The characters in the middle of the screen dropped to the bottom. Then the options reappeared in a more readable form.
Code:
Freedom Force Gravis Uplink uber hack software
Options
1. Wake boss and test night shift response
2. Webcam links
3. Link to gravis uplink-Tech Haven mail transfer agent
4. Close

She wondered what the other two options did. Webcam links seem to be pretty obvious. Now she started to wonder how to select the options, as there was only three buttons on the console. She pressed the left button and a “1” appeared in the right console window. She pressed the middle button, and “ERR” appeared in the window. She tried the right buttons, and a “0” appeared. She once again pressed the middle button, and “ERR” appeared.

“How do I get the options up?”, she thought to herself. She touched the screen and “2. Webcam Link” highlighted. The left screen sprung into life, showing four different camera views.

The first camera was from a high point outside the uplink overlooking the area. It was dark outside. The second camera was posted inside the uplink so one could see what was going on inside the uplink. The third camera seemed to be in a control room. Lisa wasn’t sure if it was the inside of the uplink control room or not. Then the forth camera sprung into life and appeared to be tracking something moving. Lisa looked closely at the image before making out the camera was tracking a fast moving herd of Droms.

Lisa decided to try the first option. “Wake boss and test night shift response.” She tapped on the screen and the option highlighted. On the console screen a message appeared. “Dropping and restoring level 1 barrier – test mode”. Then she looked at the webcam console. She could see the uplink was ablaze with Gentank’s, PSI monks, spies and private eyes running around at high speed, and looking puzzled. She then realised everything in the real world was running twice as fast, or she was thinking slowly.

Back to the real task in hand, get a message to Phoenix to get her out of here.

She selected “Link to gravis uplink-Tech Haven mail transfer agent” A new screen of options came up and the console sprung into life. “MTA Tech haven– 74910 messages frozen, 600 mailboxes offline, 215 mailboxes online.”

She then examined the other operations on the screen. There didn’t seem to be a “send message” option. There was a “Edit frozen message” option. Then she hit on an idea. Lisa found an option to “Freeze all messages” If she could edit a frozen message, then she could get a message out. Now to find a message for her boss, Brammers. She browsed the frozen message queue, and saw a few for delivery to Brammers. She could see quite a few. The first one seemed to be from Tricia. Lisa thought it would be best to leave the boss’s love mail alone, and found a newsletter message from NExT. She opened the message, and started to read the message. Then she saw the status line in the message “Status: Frozen (Reason: Mailbox offline since 10:16)”

“Oh for Crahn’s sake.”, Lisa cursed to herself. She needed to find a mailbox that wasn’t offline. Finding a well-known Angel whose mailbox wasn’t offline would be difficult. Lisa examined the online mailboxes, and worked her way down the list. Then she spotted a name she knew.

It was Garyu69,’s mailbox and it was online. Lisa knew Brammers trusted him, so the chances of a hacked message reaching him and getting to the attention of Brammers were very high. She opened his mailbox, and saw a few messages there unread. The first message subject read, “XXX I’m your hot pepper girl – get me the way you like it.”, and the second subject read “Cheap Black Dragon Viagra – the real hard stuff!”

Spam she thought. Garyu69 was not going to need those messages. She froze the message, and opened the frozen mail message. She cleared the subject and main message area. Then she managed to find her name in a selectable list of senders, and changed it so it was from her, and not from someone called “Daisy Lick”

Then she needed to think of a message to convince Garyu69 it was her. She knew Garyu69 like her red nail-polish, so she would mention that in her message. “Right.”. Lisa looked at the console, and then realised there was a slight problem.

There was no keyboard.

Lisa hit the button on the console in frustration, feeling upset and annoyed. “Why me?”

Then there was a faint beep that made Lisa look up. In the edited message there was a “0” in the message body. With a look of curiosity, she pressed the middle button and a space appeared. She tried the left button and “1” appeared.

She had an idea, to send the message in binary. She would need to devise a code, and hope someone like Morpheous could crack it. However thinking of a code was going to be hard. Then she had a brainwave.

Lisa had been reading some material from the Ceres disc, about a communications place called Land’s End Radio. Her curiosity on Land’s End Radio was sparked when she and Section 2 were checking around Simmons Factory, and they had found a yellow sign that read “British Telecom – Lands End Radio.” She read from the Ceres discs that Lands End Radio handled distress messages using a code called Morse code. The code was very easy to remember and learn. She had a little fun annoying the R&D department making beeping noises on her terminal in the Phoenix store, while she was there working. Now if she changed the dashes to “1” and dots to “0”, she had a working code.

She started to tap away on the console using the buttons, and composed a short message for Garyu69. After a few minutes, and checking the message was correct, she saved and closed the message. She unfroze Garyu69’s message queue, and monitored the message to see if he had read it. While she was waiting for Garyu69 to read his email she had a little fun re-sending the Viagra mail to some unknown person called Jake Hard.

Then she noticed that the message had been processed and read. Hopefully Garyu69 had got the message and was acting on it, however in the mean time she had to play the waiting game for help to come.

""" Chapter 26 - The Tech Haven Guardian"""

Lisa wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it was now daylight outside in the uplink. She had tried to get a little attention during the night by selected the “Wake the boss” option a few times during the night. However every time she selected that option, a group of people would turn up, look totally puzzled and leave again. Every time she selected the option, the responding group got smaller and smaller.

Then she saw something move on the first camera. It looked like a two Rhinos approaching the uplink at very high speed. Then on the second camera she saw a Rhino arrive inside the uplink and two more covering the back entrance. Back on the first camera she could see the first two Rhinos arriving at the front of the uplink.

All the sudden her world turned totally white for a brief second. Lisa was still standing where she was a moment ago. She looked at the image on the first webcam, and saw the same two Rhinos approaching the uplink, and another Rhino arrive inside the uplink. As before two more Rhino’s covered the back entrance and on the first camera she could see two Rhinos once again, take position at the front of the uplink again.

“Déjà vu”, Lisa said to herself. She swore she just had seen the same images a second ago, but anything was possible in this world. Lisa continued to watch the hide speed action inside the uplink. Then she started to recognise some of the runners. She recognised Morpheous, Sedna, Kolesar and Garyu69, and also Marcus Blade.

“Yes!”, shouted Lisa jumping for Joy, as the console beeped. She looked at the right command line screen. “Command control transferred to Phoenix Ltd – Receiving uplink control software – Success.”

Lisa Smiled, the plan had worked, help was here. Then she stopped smiling, when she realised she forgot something. She had not told Garyu69 in her message on how to enable the hard link that RI2 told her about. Quickly she pressed a button on the console to call up the mail transfer program

The screen flashed up “Phoenix Ltd – Enter Helios command code.”

“Damnit!”, She did not know any of the Helios command codes that Morpheous used. The console was once again the receiver of a sharp kick of frustration.

She watched the webcam links that was still running on the left screen. Inside the uplink she could now see Sedna and Morpheous working hard inside the control room, but they was not looking anywhere near the lifeless unit that had a number seven on it.

Lisa decided to look at the first console she had used earlier to speak to Janos. She had only noticed the first flashing button earlier, but she had failed to notice the other two buttons, like on the second console. She pressed the button to hopefully call Janos again, but this time something different happened.

The screen cleared and displayed a message “Message Broadcast Console No 7”, and all the sudden a very wide pulsing bream of light shined out from the back of the console into the Abyss, where the beam of light was bent ninety degrees downwards halfway across. It certainly looked like a laser light show that she had seen on the seafront in Via Rosso 3. She pressed the other two buttons, and like the second console “1” and “0” appeared on the screen, while the middle button became the space again. Then she noticed the pattern for the beam of light had changed, and Lisa figured out what the console was doing. It was an image projection console; whatever Lisa entered with the buttons would be projected into the Abyss. She wondered why the makers of this world made these consoles that served no purpose.

Once again frustrated she wondered over to the second console to see how Morpheous and Sedna was doing. They were still working on the other consoles, and still ignoring console number seven. Then she noticed that the display on the console number seven was active and was displaying the same image as the second console screen.

Lisa ran back to the second console, and tapped out a long message in morse-binary to get Morpheous and Sedna’s attention. The message was quite long, and it filled the whole console screen up. The projector continued to project the image across and down the Abyss, which was now quite brightly lit up. She walked back to the first console and continued to watch all the action inside the console room.

For hours nothing seemed to happen. She observed Sedna and Morpheous work on the main consoles, using their hacktools to examine the data. Yet they did not look at Console number seven, and they did not take a break. Then she noticed all the Rhino’s outside had left, and all that was left was two monks walking around. After a while she managed to recognise it was Wraith Nightcaster and Allure.

Sunset came outside the uplink, and still Sedna and Morpheous continued to work without a break.

“Please take a break guys.”, she pleaded.

Darkness fell outside the uplink, and finally Sedna got up and stated to walk towards the door. Lisa did something she had not done for a long time. She closed her eyes and prayed to the Skull.

After a moment, she opened her eyes, and she could see Morpheous and Sedna now looking at console number seven. Her prayer had been answered. Now they just needed to flick the switch.

Sedna moved her hand and flicked a switch. Lisa looked up to the platform that was high in mid air.

It did not move.

Lisa looked at the image on the screen. There was a second switch that Sedna had not touched, but Lisa could send a message to get her to try that switch. She started to walk back to the projection console, when she spotted two APC’s arrive. Some spies jumped out and then what looked like Storm Bots. Lisa had a bad feeling about the City Admin Storm bots, and the runners there. Then she saw a runner on the second camera head towards the hack room.

Lisa remembered what Janos told her about City Admin plans to use the uplinks to destroy the Dome's neutron bombs. This was no peaceful take over of the uplink by City Admin.

She ran over to the projection console and cleared the message. Could she get Sedna and Morpheous to flick the second switch so she could run over the hard-link to the Genrep the other side, and join Wraith and Allure at the uplink and fight City Admin.

Then she realised she had no weapons on her. Out of options and time, all she could do was warn Sedna and Morpheous that City Admin was here. Lisa quickly created a binary morse message that read, when decoded “CA”

She ran back to the first console, to see Morpheous and Sedna looking puzzled. Then all the sudden the two consoles in her world powered down. She could not see what was going on the camera console, and the projection console had powered down. This seemed to be bad news all around, and the next thing she felt was a sharp tingle behind her that forced her to spin around.

A white object had appeared on the platform from nowhere that could only be described as a bad paper origami cut-out, started speaking. “City Admin code broadcast program part one of three ready. Waiting for parts two and three of program to initialise neutron code transfer protocols. Begin sweep of uplink for hostile code. Hostile code detected, initialising sweep protocol.”

The broadcast program changed it shape, to take an attacking position, when a white pulsing bolt knocked the program off the platform.

Lisa turned around to see where the source of the bolt had come from. She could see a white semi-transparent male person, which was not Janos, holding a spiky looking white coloured weapon.

The male person nodded and spoke: “Miss Merlins. It’s been a long time since I saw you last in your real world before my disappearance. I am RI4.” Lisa straight away recognised the voice.

“Are you…”, Lisa began to ask, before RI4 cut her off. “Yes I am…or was Zane Shadowfall”

RI4 pressed a button on his wrist, and a white pulsing circle appeared behind him. “No time to explain Miss Merlins, step this way.”

RI4 and Lisa stepped through the circle, into a new world that consisted of many blue platforms. The circle disappeared as soon as both of them was through the circle.

“Ok Miss Merlins, change of plan since you could not get out. RI2 has been creating a new program that will keep our world safe, but we had to get you out of Gravis Uplink. You are now in the Tech Haven Bridge Storage area.”

“I’m sorry I failed Sir.”, replied Lisa.

RI4 wave his him to calm Lisa down. “Don’t worry. Now RI2’s program is going to blow the links from the uplinks to our world using a programming technique called buffering overrunning. This won’t stop City Admin from blowing the neutron bombs, but it will keep our world safe. Now the problem is this.”

Lisa looked at RI4 as if she was unsurprised. A new white shape appeared next to RI4. “This ping routing daemon, will reconstruct the data paths to the outside world once the danger has passed. It will take a few days to complete. In the meantime all the programs including you and me, will be offline. Once the ping routing daemon has completed a safe path, it will restart your RI program, and guide you to a safe exit back to the real world.”

The ping routing daemon began move to in front of Lisa. “In the mean time, I must get to my storage area. Be safe Miss Merlins.”

Everything around Lisa went blank.

""" Chapter 27 – Raiders"""

Three month had passed since the fall of Tech Haven.

Brammers sat the new Fallen Angels HQ Bar in the Dome of York, drinking a cup of El Farid coffee blend, reading his PDA with the latest reports from the Fallen Angels Science Council, Phoenix's Section 2, and the R&D department. There was even a few reports from Black Dragon and Crahn officials, something which Brammers or any other Fallen Angel never expected to see.

During the first days after the Dome of York fell, all the factions surveyed the sectors of the Dome. Out of the sixteen sectors, only ten where accessible. Six inhabitable sectors lay in total ruins, and access to them was blocked off from the rubble that had fallen. The remaining ten habitable sectors had some structural damage and they could be used to live in, but the comfort by the apartments was nothing compared with what was offered in Tech Haven. Even, Crahn, Tsunami Syndicate and the Black Dragons found the comfort of the Dome a far cry from Outzone or Pepper Park. The Twilight Guardians was indifferent, while the Fallen Angels found it hardest to adjust from the clean Tech Haven apartments to the rat infested apartments of the Dome.

It was also not possible to go back to Tech Haven or Pepper Park. City Admin controlled both areas with an iron grip never seen before. Going anyway near there was signing your death warrant. And the few spies who made it back under stealth found their apartment records wiped, and no longer accessible. It took several days to figure out why they had been wiped.

The investigation teams found out the two neutron bombs where remote detonated by City Admin. What information remained of the computer cores in the labs, revealed that City Admin sent the detonate code into the dome using all the Uplink outposts in the wastelands. However the exploding neutron bombs sent back a massive feedback pulse through the connected uplinks, and wiped out a lot of essential computer records, including the ownership records of all the apartments. Some unconnected systems survived, but the information in most systems was next to useless.

Once it was realised that no-one had a home to go back to, Ronald Rodriguez brought all the faction leaders together in one room. One faction by one, they all agreed to put their differences aside. At first Black Dragon and Tsunami Syndicate nearly had a shooting match in the meeting room, not before Ronald banged their heads together pointing out that neither of them had control of Pepper Park.

Fallen Angels and Crahn was also another sticking point. One it was pointed out that Crahn had taken control of a sector in the Dome right next to Fallen Angels, did both sides agree to cease hostilities. However there was a still a lot of Angels who did not trust Crahn, which included Brammers.

Then came the months of rebuilding and cleaning out what was left of the Dome of York. The most gruesome part was removing the dead bodies, from the Dome. A mass burial site in sector K13 was set-up. During the burials, a lot of the Crahn preachers took the effort to give then the religious blessing of Crahn. It was small touch, which made quite a few Fallen Angels look at Crahn in different light.

Brammers put down his PDA, and thought to himself for a moment. There was also a long missing in action list. Runners who had disappeared without a trace, or who had not been heard from. The list featured a lot of Fallen Angels, who had stayed to hold onto Tech Haven. From the few reports that had managed to filter to the Dome, it turned out that someone had hacked the power systems to Tech Haven, and shut down the security systems.

The small force that was in Tech Haven was no match for the Elite Storm bots. What remained a mystery was what had happened to the defending force. He opened a file on his PDA and looked at the list of missing in Action. From Phoenix was Sedna, Morpheous, Wraith Nightcaster and Lisa Merlins. Allure from eXo, then the list of missing from House DoY was very long. Ressi was very upset to learn that her team in Tech haven was all missing in action.

When Tech Haven fell, Brammers wanted to lead a force to take back Tech Haven. However the Fallen Angels Science Council denied him permission, which infuriated him. They said the time would come when they would see Tech Haven as their home again, but not just yet. He suspected the Fallen Angels Science Council was not telling him something.

Brammers picked up his PDA, when the Section 2 com-link buzzed into Life. “Boss?”

“Yes Marcus?”, replied Brammers.

Marcus Blade spoke over the open communications link. “Boss, you are not going to like this, but we spotted a convoy of 10 APC’s in J14 heading towards the Dome. Looks like City Admin are going to raid the Dome.”

""" Chapter 28 - The hills of Syncon"""

Syncon Lab. The Neo-Hikers guide to the wasteland describes it as one of the sexiest labs to be at. Located in the desert regions of the wastelands, quite frequency you would see researchers sat outside working not on their researching, but also on their suntans. Since the researching profession was still very much a female dominated profession, any male runner making a visit to Syncon was usually not only guaranteed to get their much need researching done, but quite often they managed to get a date with a researcher as well. However there was the downside to sun-kiss life of Syncon, and that was the high hills that surrounded the lab. These high hills were a prime spot for snipers.

The City Admin sniper was located on the high hills directly looking down into the entrance of the lab. He raised his sniper scope to his eye, and began to scan inside the lab for his prey. He could see two females inside chatting away, both with green hair.

He braced himself and took aim on the first green haired female. He started to squeeze the trigger on the sniper rifle, when he felt a sharp crack on his forehead. He let go of the trigger, and then saw his blood pour into the viewfinder of the scope.

Across the valley on the opposite hill three runners watched the City Admin sniper’s head explode in a shower of blood and his body tilt forward. The GenTank patted the spy. “Good shooting Kolesar”

The dead City Admin sniper started to roll forward and fall off the edge of the hill on a plunge to the ground below.

“No problem Husk. I’m just glad we got him before he got Siona or Tricia.”

The dead sniper plunge to the earth was interrupted by one of the labs very high lightning conductor spikes. His body lay resting on top of the spike until his own weight was too much, and the spike pierced through his body. He then slid slowly down the spike painting it with his own blood. Husk heard the two girls in the lab shout in shock.

The third member of the group stepped forward to see the gruesome sight. “Well I keep telling those girls to stay inside, but they never listen to me.”

“I know Marcus.”, replied Husk.

Marcus Blade turned around looked towards the South. He could see a small sandstorm brewing in the distance.

“And you may as well tell the holiday camp that there is a sandstorm coming. I thought the weather said it was staying calm for the next few days?”

Husk turned around. Sure enough there where clouds of sand kicking up in the distance. “Want to check that one out Marcus?”, asked Husk.

“Sure. Getting sand in my boots sure beats getting hot and sweaty boots from this heat.”

Marcus started heading down the path from the top of the hill. It only took him a less than a minute to get to the bottom. He then ran around the next hill to see the sandstorm getting closer. He got out his electronic binoculars and scanned the distance.

This was no sandstorm. The electronic binocular registered ten metallic objects moving in a convoy, before it actually identified then as APC’s. Marcus thought to himself, wondering if the APC’s would be friendly. Then he remembered that not many people had more than one APC. The first he knew was Phoenix. The second he knew was City-Admin.

“Crap.” He opened his com-link. “Boss?”

“Yes Marcus?”, replied Brammers.

“Boss, you are not going to like this, but we spotted a convoy of 10 APC’s in J14 heading towards the Dome. Looks like City Admin are going to raid the Dome.”

“Ok get back to the Twilight Guardian Entrance. I’ll get a defence force ready. You get yourselves back to FA-HQ”

“Roger Sir. Marcus out.”

All the sudden out of nowhere an APC roared up beside him and stopped beside him. The gunner on top of the APC pointed his gun at him, and the door on the side of the APC opened.

“Get in.”, shouted a voice from the inside of the APC.

“Look just shoot me, I’m not playing the hostage game.”

Two runners got out, grabbed Marcus around the arms, and dragged him inside. “What the…”, he started to protest, as the door slammed shut.

The engine of the APC roared, as it sped off at high speed.

""" Chapter 29 – Wires"""

From the high hills, Husk observed Marcus Blade being captured by the occupants of the APC. He swore to himself and opened a com-link to Brammers.

“Sir, they got Marcus. An APC just appeared out of nowhere.”

“Damnit. Give me a location on that convoy of APC’s. Defence teams are on their way to the Twilight Guardian Entrance. ETA 1 minute.”

Husk looked south. There was now a wall of sand blocking any view. They had done a good job of covering their tracks, as the ten APC’s was nowhere to be seen.

“Shit. Sir I’ve lost them. They kicked up a good sandstorm.”, reported Husk.

“Ok get back to Syncon lab, and get those people who are there out.”

Brammers remembered Tricia was at the lab. “Husk, please take care of Tricia.”. He did not like asking Section 2 to be responsible for the life of his Fiancé, Tricia. That job he felt was ultimately his, but he was left with little choice in the current situation.

“Yes Sir. Kolesar, get running.” Husk knew what he had to do. He started running down the hill with Kolesar not far behind him, towards the lab. As Husk ran he waved and pointed to the two girls to get down below.

The two green haired girls, Tricia and Siona saw Husk waving his hands madly in the air. “We better get down below. Something is up.”, Tricia calmly said. Siona nodded, and they started making a run for the lab underground entrance.

The two girls opened the heavy door, and climbed down the ladder inside. Less that thirty seconds later, they heard the door above being closed. Husk and Kolesar climbed down.

“What’s happening?”, Tricia worriedly asked.

“Dam Admin. They are going to raid the Dome, and they got Marcus.”, replied Husk.

“We better get back to the Dome then.”, said Siona.

“That’s a negative. Brammers is getting a defence team together.”. Husk realised he had said too much, when he saw the very worried look on Tricia’s face.

“Look if he’s going to fight. I’m fighting next to him.” Husk realised it was going to be near enough impossible to stop Tricia. She started making her way to the Genrep that had just recently been placed in the lab underground. She opened the controls, and then hit with her fist.

“No! They haven’t connected this Genrep up to the main network.”

“Look. We are safe for the moment; the security on the door will stop them from getting in. My orders are to keep you all safe, and there is no way I’m letting anyone go back up.”

Tricia sighed. “What about the meantime? Surely between the four of us we can wire up a Genrep?”

Kolesar looked at the Genrep. “Erm no cable?” Husk walked up to the Genrep and pulled it away from the wall along the floor. The unconnected cable fell out of the back. Kolesar, Tricia and Siona all looked at Husk.

”What you looking at me for? I know everything about big guns, security and tactics, but for Crahn’s sake don’t ask me to wire up a Genrep.”

Kolesar, Tricia and Siona all got to work on wiring up the Genrep.

""" Chapter 30 - Defence positions"""

Brammers opened the Faction channel on his com-link. “Killer, Ressi, Garyu69 we got a situation. City Admin raid.” He continued switching to the private Phoenix channel. “All section 2 to Sector 1 entrance, grab every clip you have, we have a raid on our hands.”

He jumped up to the go-guardian and opened it to grab the few remaining drones that he had available, and looked around for his power armour... in vain.

“Damn.”, and he started running though Fallen Angels HQ to the entrance. Outside he saw [TgR]Killer, with his clan members. “How many sir?”

“Ten APC’s spotted so far.”, replied Brammers. [TgR]Killer looked grimly at Brammers. Hiro Blackstone ran past Brammers leading most of Section 2, who was struggling to get their armour on, and their weapons loaded.

“Lets go!”

[TgR]Killer and Brammers with a force of forty Fallen Angels ran through a deserted Sector 1 of the Dome. On the way, he heard Garyu69 shout on the faction com-link that eXo was on route to sector 1. Brammers stopped at the nearest Twilight Runner, while the rest of the force ran on towards the main Dome entrance.

“Where are the Guardian?”, Brammers asked the runner urgently.

“They are at Military Base.”, replied the lone runner.

“Let them know City Admin are here.”

“Ohh…ok sir!”

“Trust the Guardian for bad timing.”, Brammers thought to himself, they had to go on a raid of their own and leave Sector 1 undefended. If Marcus’s report of ten APC’s was correct and if they were all full, that meant a force of at least sixty runners, or worse case, sixty Elite Storm Bots. Sixty runners the small Fallen Angels force could just handle, but sixty Elite Storm Bots, this was going to be a case of Droms to the slaughter.

He carried on running towards the Dome entrance where all the runners were taking up position to defend the Entrance in sector K14. He spotted Hiro Blackstone loading a Moonstriker, and his Wife Maggie Blackstone casting buffs to everyone near her.

SanityIsLost came up to Brammers. “Dude they have a group of ten APCs holding position south in this sector, and they have successfully evaded the DoY defence units.”

This was turning into a nightmare. How did they get past the DoY bots so quickly?

“Ok everyone, get in position and keep a free mind. They may have taken our old home, but they are not going to take this home. Let’s get those bastards and…”

Brammers stopped speaking. There was a faint eerie screeching sound in the air. Brammers recognised the sound, but before he could shout out a warning to everyone, someone managed to shout a warning before him.

“KAMIKAZE DRONE! TAKE COVER!”

Everyone dived for cover, as the screeching sound got louder.

""" Chapter 31 - Lost Angels"""

Brammers and SanityIsLost jumped over the edge of the entrance platform, as the screeching sound got louder. It was a ten feet drop to the sand of the desert, which was littered with empty crates and rubbish.

SanityIsLost managed to land feet first, however for Brammers the landing was a little painful, as Brammers landed front first, on top of an old crate. The crate crumbled as Brammers fell on it, and an old booze bottle inside the crate also broke. Brammers was not going to be happy fighting, smelling of powerbooze gold, yet alone having to put up with the wooden splinters.

The screeching noise stopped, and a Kamikaze drone half buried itself, nose first in the sand right in front of Brammers’s head.

For a longest second that Brammers could have ever known, he looked at the Kamikaze drone’s glowing propulsion drive, trying to scramble up and get away. SanityIsLost pulled Brammers backwards away from the drone, while Maggie Blackstone casted a shelter, deflector and heal on both of them from the entrance platform above. The chances of surviving a Kamikaze drone explosion at point blank range, even with buffs, was close to zero. Maggie knew this, but she wasn’t going to count the odds for that.

The glow of the drone’s propulsion drive faded. By this time Brammers and SanityIsLost had got ten feet away from the deadly drone.

“I think the rigger lost it.”, shouted Maggie.

SanityIsLost and Brammers turned around. Sure the drone was now lifeless. Brammers looked more closely at the drone. He then spotted something white wrapped around the drone.

He carefully approached the drone, just in case it was a nutter rigger was controlling it. He knelled down and slowly he dragged it out of the sand. Wrapped around the drone was a white cloth, which Brammers started to unwrap from the drone.

“Dude does that droner want to surrender?”, asked SanityIsLost staying ten steps behind Brammers.

”I think he does.”, said Brammers as he finished unwrapping the white cloth, which had markings on it.

“APC’s still holding position, we are in position to fire when they get in range.”, shouted a voice from above.

Brammers unfolded the cloth, and laid it out. On the top was a badly drawn out bird, which almost resembled the Phoenix logo and below the logo, the words “Phoenix Ltd” was written. He turned the cloth over.

”Helios code 200172-2100-PBH - Good morning Sir.”

Brammers knew only two people knew that code. He was one of them. He sprung up. “Hold fire. Do not fire unless fired upon.” He ran around to the ramp to the entrance and to the top of the ramp. He waved the white cloth as high as he could. One of the APC’s in the convoy moved slowly forward towards the entrance.

[TgR]Killer looked at Brammers who was very puzzled.

“Sir, the APC is now in range, shall I fire?”, shouted a TgR GenTank holding a anti-vehicle rocket launcher.

[TgR]Killer looked at Brammers, “Negative, just keep it locked on target.”, replied [TgR]Killer. He sure hoped Brammers knew what he was doing.

The gunner on top of the APC locked the 30mm cannon into the safe position and raised his hands in the air to surrender. Slowly the APC approached the ramp and stopped ten feet away. The engine on APC turned off, and a door opened. A monk stepped out, which Brammers recognised.

“Marcus? What the hell is going on?”

”Boss, this is a convoy of lost Fallen Angels who request re-registration with the faction, and also there are some City Admin runners who seek political asylum.”

A familiar looking female popped her head up from the driver’s seat and waved. “Morning Sir!”

“Sedna!” greeted Brammers.

The gunner on the top of the APC removed his helmet. Brammers blinked as he recognised the GenTank as one of the missing House DoY members.

“Mario! You are alive!”, shouted a ecstatic female in the background. Another runner stepped out of the APC.

“Morning sir, can I have my drone back please?”

“Morpheous! You are alive!”, said Brammers joyfully.

“Indeed sir, my report will be presented shortly, but sir we have ten APC’s full of members of Fallen Angels who were captured by City Admin at Tech Haven. There are also some City Administration runners who are seeking political asylum. They helped us escape from City Admin.”

Even though there was no official Fallen Angels Runner Council, Brammers wasn’t sure if he still had the authority. “I will grant that.”, replied Brammers.

Morpheous tuned around and waved the other remaining to come towards the entrance. Each APC started to approach the entrance slowly, and in the cases of where the APC’s cannon were manned, the Gentanks locked down the cannon and raised his hands in the air to show no hostility.

All the APC’s stopped at the entrance, and all the runners got out. Most of the runners were from House DoY, but there were a few eXo and TgR members as well. For nearly everyone it was a reunion of lost members of Fallen Angels. In the sea of runners, Brammers could not spot any more Phoenix runners.

“How many from Phoenix in this convoy?”, Brammers asked Morpheous.

“Just me and Sedna sir. I regret we didn’t pull Lisa out of Gravis uplink before City Admin raided. Wraith was with Allure when Sedna and myself escaped from Gravis. They helped us escape, but they never came through the Tech haven genreps. I don’t know if they are alive or dead.”, reported Morpheous.

”We better tell Garyu69 when we have re-registered your Fallen Angels citizenship. Allure is an eXo member.”

Morpheous nodded as the crowd of runners started to make their way inside of the Dome. Brammers remembered something. He opened his com-link to Husk to hear arguments in the background.

“No, that wire goes there!”, shouted a female voice.

“Husk?”, Brammers said.

“Sir! Everything ok?”

“Indeed it is. The APC convoy was full of our runners. It’s safe to come out. Sedna and Morpheous are back!”

""" Chapter 32 - Lost message"""

Freeman Abt certainly wished he had taken the day off. He had arrived for work in the Fallen Angels HQ, to see a line of runners waiting at his desk. Brammers, [TgR]Killer, Ressi and Garyu69 were there waiting for him to arrive.

“Morning Free minds!”, he greeted.

“Morning Mr Abt. A convoy of lost Fallen Angels has just arrived. Can you re-register them all with the faction please? Most of the clan leaders are here who will vouch for them. As for the runners seeking political asylum, myself and the last elected vice chairperson will grant them on an case by case basis.”

“Erm… ok, new rules came into force a week ago. All runners who seek political asylum must have a supporting clan.”

”That’s not a problem Mr Abt.”

“Ok then, so who’s first?”, said Freeman looking at the long line.

After about an hour Freeman Abt had processed nearly everyone. A few runners proved to be difficult, when they found out their clan leader had gone missing. Some runners were also independent Fallen Angels, and Brammers had to pull a bit of weight with Freeman Abt to get them re-registered them as a Fallen Angel.

Brammers came over to Morpheous and Sedna who had been busy looking around the Fallen Angels HQ.

“Ok is everything ok?”, ask Brammers

“Yes Mr Brammers.”, replied Sedna.

“Right then, I better show you to the temporary Phoenix HQ. Let me warn you, it’s a far cry from our Tech Haven HQ. Follow me.”

Brammers lead Morpheous and Sedna to the outside of Fallen Angels HQ to sector 3 of the Dome.

“Hmm look like a bomb hit the Dome of York.”, commented Morpheous.

“You are not far from wrong Morpheous. CityAdmin… Ouch damn interference on faction chat.”, complained Brammers, adjusting his com-link.

Sure enough there was a loud burst of noise on the faction com-link channel.

“Beep Boop Beep Boop Beep Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Beep Boop Boop Boop Beep Boop Beep Boop Dat Beep Boop Boop Boop Boop Beep Boop Boop Boop Beep Boop Boop Beep Beep Boop Boop Dat Boop Boop Boop Beep Beep Beep Beep Boop Beep Boop Boop Beep Beep Beep Boop Boop Dat Boop Beep Boop Beep Boop Boop Boop Beep Dat Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Beep Boop Boop Beep”

“The technicians will filter it out in a sec. Erm you two ok?”, said Brammers looking at Morpheous and Sedna. They were both looking at each other in astonishment, as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

“Sir, that is Lisa!”

Now Brammers was looking at Morpheous and Sedna in astonishment. “How is that possible?”, he asked.

“That was the same sort of sound pattern she used in Gravis uplink to communicate to us before we was raided.”, Sedna explained.

“Can we decode it?”, asked Brammers.

“Doesn’t need decoding sir, it needs translating. I’m on it right now.”, said Morpheous grabbing his Hacktool.

Morpheous pressed a few keys on his Hacktool, and a processing message came up. Then after a few moments a message came up that read “Tachhevan brodga stirega arae sox” He looked puzzled for a moment, before he called up a matrix display and swapping a few letters around. This time, a more readable message was displayed.

“Tech Haven bridge storage area six”. Morpheous showed Brammers. “That’s the translated message, but I don’t have a clue where that is.”

Brammers looked at message. “I don’t either.”. He opened a channel on his com-link.

“Husk, have you heard of anywhere call Tech Haven bridge storage area six?”

“Erm no sir, but I think the codestreamers may know, want me to ask them?”

“Please do, and get them to Phoenix HQ immediately. We may have located Lisa.”

“Sir?! Erm yes Sir, see you in HQ in five minutes.” replied Husk. Brammers closed the com-link. “Lets go.”

""" Chapter 33 - Mission planning"""

Around the table of Phoenix HQ sat Brammers, Marcus, Husk, Sedna and Morpheous, waiting for the rest of the Section 2 codesteamers to arrive. Marcus was looking on his RN terminal for a map.

“Hmm, boss. I can find a Tech Haven Bridge in the hacknet map, but no mention of storage area six.”

“Hold on Marcus, we may as well wait for the experts to get here.”

Upstairs on the second floor, the doors creaked open, and three runners entered. They made their way down to the meeting table.

“DarkHalo reporting sir.”, replied the lead runner. The other two runners sat quietly down.

“Ok then, do you know where Tech Haven bridge storage area six is?”, Brammers asked DarkHalo.

DarkHalo looked sharply into the air. “Tech Haven Bridge, yes. Storage area six no. However there is an area labelled infected storage area six. Could be the same thing.”

Husk thought for a second. “Sounds like the best place to start.”

“Indeed. Ok then, I want you and the rest of the codestreamers to head there and find Lisa Merlins. She’s one of our missing members.” The other two quiet runners started to wince.

“Sir, it’s very dangerous at the Tech Haven Bridge. No hacker has made it out of their without suffering serious NT. Also these two hackers are still in training. I hate to say it, we need more hackers if we are even to attempt to get there.”

“NT?” asked Sedna.

“Neural trauma.” replied DarkHalo.

Morpheous coughed. “Erm, I’m a hacker as well, and so is Sedna.”

“You are Morpheous? Didn’t you crack the I.R.S. Kansas City D-Base?” asked DarkHalo.

“No that was cracked by someone called Trinity. I cracked the Tangent inner core.”

“WOW!” said DarkHalo. “Sir I think we can do it, and we just got hold of some new multi-link software version 1.2”

“Oh cool, can I have a copy please?” Morpheous said.

“I take it we have a go?” Brammers asked.

“Yeah we do. Oh hang on, you two have jacked into the Hacknet?” asked DarkHalo.

“Yes we have, quite a few times, but we lacked the software to get anyway far. Mind you it's been fun causing problems for City Admin.”

“Hmm… We better try the software at the first travel-zone. Mr Brammers, I think we are ready.”

“Ok then, get her back, and be safe…in there.”

""" Chapter 34 - Into the hackers world"""

Morpheous, Sedna, DarkHalo and the other two Phoenix codestreamers got up and headed upstairs to the Genrep. One by one, they opened their hacktools and activated the connection program, which all hacktools had inside them. The connection program had been built into all hacktools for years. However like many things, it was one of things that didn’t work. That was until a few months ago, when a hacker was messing around a genrep and tried the connection program.

The hacker thought someone was smoking something dodgy near him and he had been on a mind-trip of a lifetime. Then stories started to spring up about the newly discovered hacking world, and fights between daemons and corrupt packets was starting to become the topic of discussion at faction bars. What no-one could explain was how or why people could travel in a virtual world.

As soon as the five Codesteamers arrived in the virtual world, which was labelled Fallen Angels DNS, they started taking the path to the outer networks. All five runners glowed a orange colour, and it was very difficult to make out who was who, as they looked identical, except for Sedna. The only comment she made about her orange virtual appearance was that her ass looked big, which made the other four male codestreamers crack up laughing for a few minutes.

They arrived at the connection node to the first Travel Zone. “Ok everyone ready?” All five codestreamers initialised their multilink software. White weapons with four pulsing spikes morphed out of their hands. Next their defence program initialised and all of them heard a buzz of a shield falling into place.

”Lets go.” The five codestreamers morphed through the connecting portal to the travel zone.

DarkHalo looked around. Ahead of him he could see a white control console, and the platform forked into a T shape. At the end of the forks, there was transmitting nodes which sent narrow streams of data that seemed to go on forever. Below them there was a green dot map of what appeared to be the desert regions around the Dome of York.

“Right keep an eye out for packets. Hmm we are lucky today. Nothing about so far…”

“Up there!” Sedna shouted. She aimed her hack-weapon and fired. Four white pulses shot out from her weapon and hit the DOS packet. It whistled and shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Phew… Nice shooting, and that new software works well.” DarkHalo said to Sedna.

Morpheous walked up to the console, and pressed the glowing white button. A screen slid up from behind, and displayed a routing table.
Code:
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.192.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 node1
0.0.0.0 192.168.192.250 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 link1
212.67.198.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 node2
0.0.0.0 212.67.198.254 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 link2

“Hmm you got the IP’s for the next hops? If you do I think we could re-route links to a different uplink, and save time getting to the Tech Haven bridge link.”, Morpheous asked.

“Not a bad idea Morpheous. Here let me call up the addresses.”. DarkHalo opened his hacktool. “Try 192.168.96.0”

Morpheous opened his hacktool and linked it into the console. He pressed a few buttons, and the hacktool beeped twice. Morpheous shook his head.

”Nope not working. Got another one?”

“Only the multicast IP 239.0.0.0 which takes us to the Tech Haven Bridge-link nodes, but if we use that one it’s possible the connecting links will drop while we are halfway across. Trust me, it does happen. It seems that the link runs out of data. If that happens and we are on the dataflow, all five of us are going to need medical treatment for NT, which I can assure you is not pleasant.” The other two runners looked a little worried.

“What the treatment or the NT.” asked Sedna.

“Both.” replied DarkHalo.

“Ok I have an idea.”, said Morpheous. “The problem with multicast is there is never enough data to keep it open before it reverts back to its unicast link. But with a few parameter tweaks we can cause the data to be repeated and turning off the compression helps.”

“Turn off compression? Never though of that one, okay let’s do it.”, replied DarkHalo.

Morpheous and DarkHalo set about altering the routing tables using their Hacktools. For a few brief seconds the flowing data streams, stopped and the green dot world rotated. Then the flowing data streams shot back out from the flat transmitting nodes on the platform, but they were a lot wider than before.

“Right let’s go, we don’t have much time. And keep running!” shouted DarkHalo.

All five codestreamers jumped onto one of the flowing datastream, and started to run. The datastream flowed so fast that the platform disappeared very quickly into the distance. Sedna wondered if she could feel the wind in her hair, but then she remembered that this world didn’t have hair or wind. She started to think what it would be like to have hair in this world. Then she noticed the datastream she was running on was slowing down. Sedna realised she had been thinking too hard, and stopped thinking. The datastream picked up speed again, and she then noticed the other four codestreamers were a fair way in front.

She looked down to see the green dot map of the wastelands, which was falling away from her and moving very slowly. The she saw wastelands coming back up again. They was past halfway point, but she noticed the fat datastream starting to slim down, as it was starting to run out of data to carry.

Onwards she pressed on, and the datastream got narrower and narrower. Where was the other side, Sedna asked herself for a brief second. Then out of nowhere she was standing on a blue platform, with the other four codestreamers. She turned around to see the datastream fade out of existence.

“That was close, Sedna what slowed you down?”, ask Morpheous.

“I think I thought too hard.” replied Sedna.

“Well we need to keep our thinking down in the next node, as beyond that connecting node is the Tech Haven Bridge link. Think for too long, and you will really have some bad NT. Ready?” asked DarkHalo. Everyone nodded, and entered the next portal node to the Tech Haven Bridge link.

""" Chapter 35 - Tech Haven Bridgelink"""

Inside the Tech Haven Bridgelink there was a series of blue platforms that ran around a small lower centre platform. Connecting the small lower was a set of linking platforms, which had some slow moving data conducts. All five codestreamers looked around. Morpheous could see two very large white shapes moving in the distance, and there was a high pitch beeping noise. The two large white shapes moved slowly around the platforms as if they were on a patrol.

“What’s that in the…”, he began to ask.

”Shhh.”, whispered DarkHalo. “They look like pings of death. Infected storage area six is through that connecting portal.”

Morpheous looked over to where DarkHalo was pointing to. The portal node was on the platform below them. Morpheous waved his hand to tell everyone to get down to the next level. One by one that jumped down to the next level, and quietly sneaked to the connection portal, stopping when they heard any beeps which where coming from the pings of death. Before they entered the next connection portal, all the codestreamers re-initialised their shields.

On the other side, there was a long blue walkway towards a platform, on the platform there stood a motionless multicoloured person. DarkHalo looked. “No, that can’t be an RI?” The person was glowing red where her hair was, yellow on her face and hands, and blue for the rest of her body.

“That almost looks like Lisa to me.” said Sedna.

Out of sight a white shaped slowly moved to her side. “Intruders detected – deploying countermeasures.” The ping router daemon changed shape into a more aggressive looking shape.

“Great.” replied Morpheous, as he levelled his weapon at the Ping Router Daemon.

“One intruder identified as RI5 Four intruders unidentified. Welcome RI5 – Countermeasures cancelled. Awaiting command.” The ping router daemon returned to its former shape.

“Ehh?”, replied Morpheous. All the other four codestreamers looked at Morpheous. Carefully and slowly Morpheous approached the Ping Router Daemon.

“List available commands.” Morpheous commanded.

”Error 404 file not found.” replied the ping router daemon.

“Ok…” Morpheous looked at the motionless Lisa. “Wake Lisa up.”

”Error 500 Command not recognised.” was the reply.

“Sounds like it been damaged.” commented DarkHalo.

“Yeap… This could be tricky. Ok restart.” said Morpheous.

”Select program to restart.” replied the daemon.

“Now we are getting somewhere. Restart ping router daemon.”

”Cannot restart ping router daemon – corrupt data detected. Available programs for restart are RI6 and RI5”

“What’s program are they?” asked Sedna.

Morpheous looked at DarkHalo. “What did you say about Lisa when you saw her.”

“I said she looked like a RI?” replied DarkHalo.

”Hmm, and this ping router daemon thinks I am RI5. So perhaps Lisa is RI6?”, said Morpheous. He thought for a few seconds. What if RI6 was something deadly to them all?

”Sounds logical, but what one of us, or something else is RI6. What would the effect of restarting one of us do?” asked Sedna.

“Tricky one.” commented DarkHalo. “Look if you want to take the risk of restarting RI6 or Lisa, I’m in.”

“Me too.” said Sedna. The other two codestreamers nodded.

Morpheous looked around. “Ok here we go.” He took a breath. “Restart RI6”.

For several seconds nothing happened everyone looked around looking puzzled. Then the ping router daemon replied to Morpheous's request. “Error – cannot restart a stopped process.”

“Ok then. Start RI6.”, commanded Morpheous, shaking his head a little.

“Command succeeded.”, the ping router daemon replied.

Everyone looked at Lisa. She remained motionless for several seconds.

“Be Safe.” Lisa said. Then she moved and looked around her. “Erm, the danger passed?”

Morpheous looked at Lisa. “What danger?” Lisa looked at Morpheous. “I don’t recognise you or anyone, but you sound like Morpheous.”

“Gold star for you. We come to get you out.”

“Oh thank Crahn for that!” Lisa replied. “Who else is here?”

“Sedna, and the rest of the Phoenix codestreamers.”

“Codesteamers? Has Mr Brammers created a new sub-section in Phoenix in the last two days?”

“Erm I don’t know, I only got back to Phoenix a few hours ago. Look we got to get you back to the real world. Lets go.”

""" Chapter 36 - Pings of Death"""

Lisa and the five codestreamers, headed towards the portal connecting the storage area to the Tech Haven Bridge. They all passed through the portal. DarkHalo looked up to the platform “Ok we need to get up there...Oh shit!”

The two pings of death had spotted the group of runners, and were heading towards them at high speed. The first ping of death fired a white pulse that make a deafening beep sound.

Morpheous did a gravity-defying jump to the platform above that lead to the exit. Lisa took a run and performed the same gravity-defying somersault to the platform above. The second ping of death fired it’s weapon. The other four codestreamers tried to leap to the platform, but they only managed to grab the edge of the platforms with their fingers. Lisa and Morpheous pulled up Sedna, and then DarkHalo. However the two white pulses hit the other two codestreamers, and they faded from existence.

“RUN!”, shouted DarkHalo. Lisa, Sedna, Morpheous and DarkHalo started running as fast as they could towards the exit portal. The two pings of death started heading towards the group and firing volleys of white pulses at them. Each pulse hit the platform, blowing segments of it into thousands of pieces. They passed through the portal to the other side, as the two oversized pings of death collided with the small portal.

Morpheous pressed the button on the white console to get the routing table up. “Quick get that uplink re-routed Morpheous.”, said DarkHalo. Sedna looked at the circular portal that was stopping the pings of death getting through. Then it started to get bigger. “They are going to come through any moment now!”

“Nearly there…” replied Morpheous as he used his hacktool on the console to control the uplink.

DarkHalo turned to Lisa. “Whatever you do, don’t think, just run.” Lisa nodded, as she saw the circular portal was now three times it’s original size. A datastream shot out from the node in the platform. “Now!” shouted Morpheous, as he jumped onto the datastream and disappeared rapidly into the distance.

Lisa, Sedna and DarkHalo jumped onto the datastream as the two ping of death broke through the portal, and shot a volley of white pulses across the path of the datastream, but they all missed. However the two pings of death had not given up. They both flew onto the high speed datasteams.

DarkHalo looked behind him to see two white shapes in the distance slowly gaining on them. “Shit they are on this datastream and catching us.” Sedna looked down, the green dot map was getting bigger which meant they was past halfway point. Lisa looked straight ahead and just kept running. She was not going to look down or behind her.

Lisa landed first, to see Morpheous rapidly entering something on his hacktool. Sedna and DarkHalo then arrived on the platform.

“Keep going, they are a few seconds behind us... Too late.”, shouted DarkHalo. The two pings of death where meters away from the platform, as Morpheous pressed a key on his hacktool.

The datasteams disappeared, and the two pings of death hovered in mid air motionless, just a few metres from safety. With no data to ride on, the pings of Death shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Phew.”, breathed DarkHalo. “That was close, and I’ve never known pings chase runners before.”

“Can we just get out of here before any more decide to come?”, Lisa asked.

“Yeah sure. We are heading towards the DNS and then out, its safe there.” replied Morpheous.

Lisa, Sedna, Morpheous and DarkHalo passed though the portal connecting the uplink to the Fallen Angels DNS. Morpheous was looking puzzled. “RI5. Why did the daemon call me that?”

“Well I was labelled RI6 here.”, Lisa replied.

“RI?”, asked Morpheous who was now completely confused.

”Morpheous, this is going to take some explaining, even I have a hard time understanding this world.”

The four Fallen Angels arrived at the exit Portal. “Here we are, the exit to the real world.” DarkHalo stepped through and evaporated in a white flash.

Lisa smiled, “Home sweet home.”. She stepped through, and appeared at the Fallen Angels HQ Genrep. Confused she looked around, as Sedna and Morpheous appeared from the Genrep.

“Erm this isn’t Tech Haven.”, she commented.

“No it’s the Fallen Angels HQ in the Dome of York.”, replied Sedna.

“Seems a lot has happen in the last few days, while I was gone.”

Sedna thought for a second, and then realised that was not going to be easy to explain. “Erm Lisa you better come to the Phoenix HQ I think there is a lot to explain.”

""" Chapter 37 - New home"""

Lisa sat back in the chair in shock, after listening to what had happened to Tech Haven, Phoenix and the Dome of York. “Three months have passed?”, exclaimed Lisa.

“I’m afraid so.”, replied Brammers.

“I’ve only been gone… erm it feels like a day or two. RI...or Zane Shadowfall put my, what he called my real intelligence in, erm… I guess sleep mode. He said it would be a day before the data-links were reconstructed.”

Brammers, Husk and Morpheous looked at each other. "Well we know what happened to him now.", commented Husk. "You think he's still in there?"

"I don't know, if I was stuck for 3 months, I just hope they are not stuck...or corrupted.", said Lisa.

“Husk when that noise on the faction channel start?”

“Two weeks ago I think.”, replied Husk. Lisa looked worried. “Is my body ok sir, and what about the other two Phoenix members.”.

Brammers picked Marcus’s medical report. “The only comment he said was activity on your Temporal Lobe is a little higher than your last baseline. Other than that, he’s given you the all clear. As for the other two codestreamers, they are lucky to have just got some minor headaches, and not a bad case of...NT”

“What noise on faction channel?”, Lisa asked.

“Your code that you used to send messages from Hacknet.”, Morpheous replied. “And next time can you use a code that our computers can recognise?”

“It was Morse code Morpheous. Don’t tell me you had a hard time translating it?”

Morpheous cringed and slowly nodded.

“Just as Morpheous and Sedna turned up when they did. Everyone has been dismissing that noise as a channel fault.” commented Husk.

“Erm I didn’t send any message on the faction channel. The last one I sent was at Gravis uplink, while you two was in the control room.”

“Then who sent your location? What happened before RI4 put you in sleep mode.”, quizzed Morpheous.

“Well he had a ping routing daemon, which would recreate the paths to a genrep, once the danger had past, said it would be a few days.”

“A ping routing daemon? Hmm I can only guess the reason it took so long was the program didn’t work or got corrupted. It was a nasty job getting to your location.”, said Morpheous. “I can only guess it had some problems making a safe route so it sent a message.”

Morpheous, Sedna and Husk engaged in a debate about the new Hacknet world, but when it was clear that the debate was going to go on for a long time, Brammers asked them to have their own meeting about it.

“What about the Phoenix store, did you get who blew that up?”, asked Lisa.

“No we didn’t. Any information we had is lost in Tech Haven, which is under City Admin control. Now that Fallen Angels is back unto a decent size, I will spare resources to find out who did it.”

“May I take charge of that investigation?”, Lisa asked.

“Well since you got down to the bottom of the Tangent conspiracy, the Skull Cult, and many others I can’t think of anyone else better to do the job."

Lisa nodded, she wasn’t feeling too happy about losing three months of her life.

“Oh one thing. Your Holy Lighting Spell. Or I should say your 100% pair of identical spells...” Brammers walked over to the go-guardian and got out the two identical spells that were recovered. He handed them to Lisa.

She carefully examined them, and felt them. “You say they are 100% identical? Well this one feel like mine and the other one doesn’t.”

Brammers raised an eyebrow, “How can you tell the difference?”

Lisa shrugged, “Call it our sixth sense. We have ways of telling whom the spells belong to by feeling them. Can I hold onto the other one?”

“Sure.”, said Brammers. “Now is there anything else before we wrap this meeting up?”

Everyone nodded. “Ok then lets call it a day. Now there is a party in a few hours down in the Fallen Angels Bar, to celebrate the return of lost angels. And Lisa, welcome back.”

Lisa smiled. “Thank you sir.”.

""" Chapter 38 - Fallen Angels Bar, Written by Brammers, Lisa Merlins and Husk"""

Lisa arrived at the Fallen Angels bar, to hear the sound of The Krodigy beating out, and lots of loud cheering and shouting going on. She could see a lot of the members from House DoY dancing and some were engaged in a drinking game. Someone shouted “Wait! Wait! Wait!”, and the small crowd started laughing. She looked around to see if she could see any of her friends about. She first spotted saw Marcus Blade and SanityIsLost at the bar.

“Hey Lisa Chick!”, greeted SanityIsLost. She held out a long spiff. “Like some?”

Lisa smiled and accepted her offer. “Why not, I think I need it after the last few days...or months!”

“You know I could tell you how unsafe that stuff is. But I’m not going to. Hmm I better go and speak to the other half before she drinks herself silly.” Marcus went off to find Ressi.

“Hey dude, you heard the news about Marcus and Ressi?”, SanityIsLost asked Lisa.

”No? What news?”

“They are going to get married next week.”

Lisa looked at SanityIsLost. “I’m not pulling your leg Lisa”.

”I believe you Sil. Still if they want to get married, I’m not stopping them. Now where are Killer and Garyu69?”, She looked around, and if they could have not timed their entrance more perfectly, she saw them both enter the bar. [TgR]Killer spotted Lisa, and Garyu69 waved.

“Hey Lisa.”, shouted [TgR]Killer.

“Killer babes!”, replied Lisa. [TgR]Killer walked up to Lisa and pulled something from his pocket and handed it to Lisa. “I’ve had this in my pocket for the last three months.”

”Nail Polish!” smiled Lisa. She gave Killer a hug. “You know how to put a smile on my face don’t you.” She opened the top and started to apply some polish to her nails. She turned her nails in different directions to the light to see the colour change between gold and black.

“What you think?”, She asked, smiling.

“Put some more on!” said Garyu69 excitedly. Lisa applied the polish slowly and carefully to the rest of her fingernails.

A little further away from his friends HusK was sitting down a table in the corner when a strange looking man silently sat down at the other end of the table.

“You know who I am kid?” The mysterious stranger asked.

HusK looked somewhat bored at him before he jumped up and hit his head against the roof above him. “Damnit, YOU!!” He shouted, people around him looked up so he put his voice back down as he said “You have a habit of showing up in the strangest places on the strangest times…”

“So you do remember.” Spoke the man while hiding his head a bit deeper into his hood. “Listen kid, I understand if you don’t trust me, last time we spoke you got your ass brainwashed by some of those City Admin, but trust me when I say we’re on the same side here.”

“Sure sure… and then we walk outside and slam I’m floored again, no no, this time I’ll be more than prepared!”

“Shut up, and listen up kid! I’m only going to say this once!” The man looked sharply at HusK, who, shaken a bit, abruptly closed his mouth. “You remember I spoke of the circle of eight? And I told you the mortal coil had become unstable? Well, the mortal coil is destroyed as you’ve probably assumed, but the circle of eight is still VERY real!” The man took a quick look around as he brought his voice down. “You are still a target!”

HusK rolled his eyes around and lifted his head to the roof as to say… Why me. “Okay te…” The man was gone…

Somewhere seemingly far away now he heard someone shout “Oh my god, Sex!”

Mario who had just arrived in the bar ran towards Lisa who just finished painting her nails.

“Hey sexy Mario! Guys, lets get drinks in.”. Lisa, Mario, Garyu69 and Killer headed towards the Bar, to join a large group of Fallen Angels all drinking away as HusK quietly sneaked away to his apartment thinking about what the man he knew as Dominion had said.

Brammers smiled as he saw Lisa and everyone heading to the bar. He was happy to see a lot of very happy Fallen Angels. He felt a pair of warm hands slowly wrap around his body. “What a day honey, but it turned out just right sweetie.” Brammers turned around to face Tricia and smiled. He then kissed her.

“It has indeed. Hmm, you fancy a few drinks and slipping away early?” said Brammers giving her another kiss.

“How about we slip away now honey? I’ve got some wine waiting in our apartment.” smiled Tricia.

Brammers smiled. Quietly and unnoticed Tricia and Brammers slipped away, while the rest of the Fallen Angels continued to drink and dance the night away.

""" Epilogue"""

Lisa walked into the Temporary Phoenix HQ located in the Dome of York. Although everyone in Phoenix had tried to clean up the mess before moving in, the matter of covering up the old messy walls was one task that obviously got missed. She was pretty sure her nail polish would not come close to painting the whole store.

As usual she was late for work, but it seems everyone in Phoenix was late that day, as she was the first one in. Before heading downstairs to the main office area, she looked at the quietly buzzing genrep. She wondered how long it would be before she would trust a genrep again.

Slowly Lisa wondered downstairs, and found a RN terminal. She sat down at the desk and pressed a few keys to open a new file.

She typed in “Phoenix store bombing.” and then sat back in the chair in deep thought. Whoever was responsible for blowing up the Phoenix store, and left her stranded in the hacker’s world for three months was going to feel the wrath of her Fire Apocalypse.

* * *

The male Diamond Real Estate runner sat down at the table in the Pepper Park Sector 1 café. A dark female runner appeared from the shadows of the bar area and sat down opposite the male runner.

“You are risking a lot coming here, with City Admin crawling around.” he said to the female runner.

“Look boy, this sector is my home I know where to hide when City Admin come running in this sector.”

“All I can say it’s about bloody time you turned up, I’ve waited 3 months for this payment.”

She threw on the table a cashcube. The male runner picked it up, and examined it.

“Hey bitch, this is only a payment for 5 million nc’s. The price agreed was 10 million nc’s”

She sharply leaned forward, so that she was staring at the runner right in the face. “You only got the job half done. Your job was to destroy Phoenix and kill Brammers. And Brammers is still alive not dead. Consider yourself lucky that I paid you at all for destroying Phoenix, considering they seem to be still trading. Tangent was going to pay me a 5 million bonus for knocking off Lisa Merlins, but since that bitch turned safe and well a few days ago, they cancelled the payment. Anyway, our business is your pleasure, until next time.”

She got up and started to leave.

“Before you go I’ve got something that you may be interested in.”

“Make it quick boy, as the next thing you will see is my gun. I am not in a good mood.”

“Well being in Diamond real estate has its perks. You see when City Admin took over Tech Haven they got us to re-assign the keys and clear out the apartments.”

She raised her gun. “I said make it quick, I don’t want to hear about your day job.”

“Well one apartment had some items in it you may be interested in. A love letter from Tricia to Brammers and a key to Mr Brammer’s personal Reveler, presented to him by Mr Craig Diggers. I could sell the apartment key for quite a discount.”

She lowered her gun and considered the opportunity.

“How much you asking?”

“To you, a low price of 10 million nc, this key is after all quite priceless.”

She raised her gun. “You are a bastard you know.”

* * *

The door opened to the Fallen Angels Bar, and Brammers called in on his usual morning call for his cup of El-Farid coffee, before heading to the Phoenix HQ. He saw Leroy the Barman cleaning up the mess from the party, which had lasted well into the early hours.

“Good Morning Mr Brammers Sir. The usual?”, greeted Leroy heading back towards the bar.

“Yes please Leroy, not too strong. I drank a little too much yesterday.”

Leroy nodded and switched on the coffee grinder and put in the beans in. He turned back to Brammers.

“Yeah I can see that. The HQ is full of Angels with sore heads today. I see you guys are advertising again.”

“My head is also sore…Erm advertising?”

“Well for a start I see you brought the advertising space above my bar.”

Brammers blinked and looked up. Sure enough the Phoenix logo blazing above the bar on the display, except for a few differences. There was a border around the logo, and instead of saying Phoenix Ltd it said Phoenix NC.

“That’s not quite our logo, and I certainly didn’t order any advertising space.”

“Then whose advertising is that?”

“I don’t know Leroy.”

""" Credits"""

The Fall of Techhaven - The Director's cut

Written by Lisa Merlins, Brammers, Katherine Mayer (Siygess), Morpheous and Husk.

Story based on the official Neocron 1 Storyline. Chapter one contains extracts from the Neocronicle, which is written by KK. (Hope you guys don't mind me copying and pasting it!)

Story editor: Lisa Merlins, Brammers and Husk

Storyline graphics project: Husk.

Story originally hosted by: THN (The Tech Haven Network)

Special thanks to Katherine Mayer, and Morpheous for their excellent chapters.

Coffee supplied by: Sainsburys, Morrisons, and Leroy's Coffee bar in Tech Haven sector 2.

Thanks to everyone on DoY Teamspeak, Phoenix and TgR Vent, the Official Neocron Forum and the Techhaven Network for all their support and comments. I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

No Droms were harmed in the writing of this story.

...and will there be a follow up? When it's ready (KK trademark) :D