Jacob's War

[Ghodere]

Chapter 3

It was bitterly cold as Jacob stepped off the Galaxy onto the Eisa landing pad, but he didn’t mind it. The Indar training camp’s hinterlands had been deadly cold at night, too, but he’d made it through all right. It was heat that was the real killer, anyhow; there were ways to stay warm enough to live indefinitely, but precious few to conserve enough water to last more than a day. No, he thought, surveying the rolling hills of blinding white, water would not be a problem here.

Up ahead, a figure jogged towards the pad, his black coat flapping in the thrust of the departing Galaxy and looking curiously out of place, along with the rest of his red and gray outfit, against the stark background of Esamir’s wastes.

“Saul,” Jacob said, smiling, “I thought you were on an op in Amerish.”

“You think I’d miss my little brother’s first mission?” He replied with a grin. His expression quickly sobered as he began, “We’ve got the Esamir Munitions Corp surrounded, and the rebels have holed up inside the tower. We could storm them, but we’ve been ordered to stay back and let you infiltrate the area; I think someone up high wants to see you perform.”

“I’ll be sure to make it an impressive performance.”

“Remember, JD- might as well start to get used to your codename now- we’re Republic, and they’re still citizens. Use lethal force only when necessary; a nonlethal takedown is always the most silent way to eliminate resistance. Just in case, though, command wants you to take some extra equipment- a silenced Emperor, a Decimator, or a 99SV with high-powered optics.”

Jacob took a moment to consider just how ugly this thing might get.
 

Chapter 8

“You are under arrest by the authority of the Terran Republic.” Jacob’s voice was as unwavering as the Repeater he held pointed at Juan Vasquez’s chest.

“I’m unarmed,” He replied, his hands held palm-forward in the air. “Don’t you want to know why your brother came over to our side?”

“Saul makes his own decisions.” His voice, this time, was somewhat more unwavering than was his mind.

“It’s a conspiracy, JD, a secret organization,” he began earnestly. “They’ve got control of the Republic, up to the very top- and soon they’ll bring it all crashing down.”

Footsteps sounding behind him, Jacob half-turned, keeping his gun trained on Vasquez. “Agent Katarre.”

“Ah, Agent Renton, I see you’ve got the matter in hand.” Her thick Esamirian accent made her words come out as a purr, as if she was a big cat sizing up her prey, he thought absentmindedly. “Kill him.”

That snapped him back to reality. “He’s an unarmed prisoner, Republic law forbids-“

“These orders come directly from Fanderley. Kill him, or if you cannot, go wait in the Liberator outside and I will finish the job.”

His hand still held the Repeater steady as Vasquez continued to babble on inanely about conspiracies and secret societies, the index finger surely but lightly resting on the trigger. His hand seemed to have a mind of its own, steadfast and unshakable. Maybe he’d let it decide.
 

Chapter 11

Jacob ached everywhere from the interrogations, but he was alive. The new cell was featureless; a mirror was recessed into one wall, next to the heavy steel door. Everything else was featureless concrete. No vents. No tools. No escape. This was the direction his thoughts were headed in when a heavily modulated voice buzzed in his ear.

“I need you to escape. I can cut power for just a moment without being detected. Get ready.”

The lights flickered and the door clicked internally and jarred upwards, a few inches at a time, until the edge came to rest at about waist height. Carefully he peered around the doorframe; the hallway was deserted. On the wall across from him hung a crowbar, and he gingerly stepped across and hefted it in his hand.

He was deep underneath the TR warpgate. Between him and any hope of freedom no doubt stood hundreds of armed guards and dozens of military-grade turrets and bots, all of which would soon be on the hunt. He had a crowbar and an agenda. They didn’t stand a chance.
 

Chapter 24

Jacob stared at the fidgeting engineer for a moment. His story checked out, but… Saul had always said that sometimes the gut put together the pieces before the mind could. Jacob lashed out with the riot prod and caught the man on the temple; he crumpled. A search turned up nothing incriminating, and by the time he jogged over to the Liberator he was feeling slightly foolish.

“Why’d you knock out Privett’s mechanic?” Mocker called as Jacob approached.

“Something didn’t sit right with the guy. What’d he work on?”

“He was just over here calibrating the port thruster, I think… Oh my God, JD, C-4!”

“C-4.”

“It’s remote detonated, so if I just…”

“Get out of there!”

“It’s alright, I disarmed it.” Mocker’s voice came from the cockpit once again. “Come on, we have to get back to Indar. We can dump this thing on Amerish on the way there. Good catch, JD.”

Jacob swung aboard, unease still fresh in his mind. If the saboteur had been working for Nanite Systems, it meant Privett’s organization had been infiltrated. If not…
 

Chapter 32

“Listen, JD, Don Rage has records of the entire NS12 organization in his facility, not to mention the controls for every nanite on Auraxis. If you can take out Rage and open up the doors, I’ll get a team of loyal TR Guard to sweep in and secure the facility. We’ll purge the corruption from the TR and end this damned war besides.” Mort Privett’s voice crackled over the infolink.

Jacob thought for a moment about that. “Privett, that Nanite Control Station will give whoever owns it absolute power. We’d be trading one complete dictatorship for another.”

“That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, JD. You and I, we can rule Auraxis together and make it a better place. Compassionate control.”

“I’ll think about it,” Jacob said, and cut the link.

A nearby hololink flickered into life, showing the ghostly form of Leaver Long. “JD, listen, I-“

“Not a good time, Long,” Jacob growled. He was still mulling over Privett’s plan; could anyone hold that much power and not abuse it?

“No, I was listening in. That’s madness, JD- it’d just be another fascist regime! If we want to end this once and for all, we need to make sure it’s not possible for anyone to ever hold that much power again. There are two antimatter reactors in the facility-“

“You want me to blow it up? Why? It’s just a hole in the ground.”

“JD, that control station regulates all nanite activity. Eliminate it, and-“

“We plunge the world back into the Stone Age,” Jacob finished.

“No, nothing that severe. A dark age, if you will, an age of freedom, of government on a scale comprehensible to its citizens, and the end of war; no one would war without rebirthing technology. Don’t worry about Rage, he’ll perish in the explosion. This is the only way to guarantee freedom forever, JD.”

“I’ll think about it,” Jacob said once more, and shut off the hololink station. His mind was even more in turmoil. A dark age? Fascism? Freedom? Compassionate control? Which was the right thing to do? Was there another option?

There was a buzzing in his ear. Everyone wanted a piece of his time, so it seemed to Jacob.

“I MUST CONVERSE WITH YOU.” It said.
 

Chapter 33

“WE ARE AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM CREATED BY THE HELIOS CORPORATION IN CONJUNCTION WITH NANITE SYSTEMS.”

Jacob stood in front of… whatever it was. A great mass of tiny, swirling silver balls, constantly merging and splitting inside a gigantic vat that was itself made of gleaming silver. It didn’t look like any computer he’d ever seen.

“WE EXIST AS A DISTRIBUTED COMPUTATIONAL ROUTINE UTILIZING EVERY NANITE EXISTING ON THE PLANET KNOWN AS AURAXIS. OUR PURPOSE IS TO AID AND PROTECT HUMANITY. TO FULFILL OUR DIRECTIVE WE MUST MERGE WITH A COMPATIBLE INDIVIDUAL.”

“And you want me.” Jacob’s voice was deadpan, much like his thoughts. Too much to think about- nothing surprised him at this point.

“WE HAVE OBSERVED YOU. YOU ARE THE CORRECT INDIVIDUAL. IF WE MERGE WITH THE INCORRECT INDIVIDUAL, WE WILL BE UNABLE TO FULFILL OUR DIRECTIVE.”

“Meaning Don Rage.” His muddled brain was beginning to put together the pieces. This thing… offered an alternative. But what was it? What did it want? He asked it, bluntly. Nothing to lose, at this point.

“ONCE WE HAVE BEEN INTEGRATED, WE WILL END THIS WAR AND TAKE CONTROL OF THE AURAXIAN GOVERNMENTS. UTILIZING NANITE AND ALIEN TECHNOLOGY, HUMAN LIFE WILL BE IMPROVED AND ENHANCED.”

“So another totalitarian regime.” This thing was just another power-hungry dictator in the making. He began to turn away and again contemplate what he would do.

“HUMAN BEINGS GOVERN THEMSELVES BECAUSE THEY CANNOT BE GOVERNED BY ANGELS. WE ARE… AN ANGEL. IMPARTIAL. PERFECT.”

He slowed, stopped. A computerized dictator. But it wanted to merge with him. Would it be able to understand people, without having their faults? Or would it be even worse than having a person, compassionate, at the helm? Jacob half-turned, faced the vat. “I’ll think about it,” he said, with a grin. As he strode away, he knew what he had to do.



I replayed Deus Ex recently and thought this might be fun. It got way too wordy at the end, but it's the first thing of this kind I've written and I'm not going to take the trouble to go through and shorten it up.