Cenerea, 3rd planet from the star Letria, Regalius,

The Homeland, Central Region, The Capitol City,

Eighteen Cenerean Months Ago

Jay watched Harold walk barefoot across the slate tile floor of his living room and sit down on a silver plastileather couch, the material generating a stretching noise as he sat. The old man leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands dangled carelessly between his legs as if he were 20 again. Jay could almost see Harold as he was so many years ago, some crazy young man in his prime and not this scary University Instructor angry at life his students believed him to be.

Harold glanced over at Jay, noting the young man strangely stared back at him as if he knew something Harold did not. The instructor shrugged off the look and decided to continue the story. "So, about a week goes by and I was waiting on the missile defense script to finish running through its second set of server address ranges, Browne came in the server room. She told me she received intel on some sort of machine that the Military was developing from a buddy in the Eastern Region."

"Now, me being the inquisitive sort, I really wanted to vet this info. It just so happened that only the day before, I located an ERDF data server with a poorly secured firewall, so, I decided to go digging around in its folders. As I explored this treasure trove of classified material, I found it, the port access information. I mean, my gut told me to make my little adventure a hit 'n run, and that was where I messed up. I didn't listen. I forced my way in, and instead of just making a quick data dump and getting out with whatever I could copy, I got greedy, deciding to go take a leak and let it download." Harold laughed. "Yeah, the night before was some kind of party...you know, Browne, Josie, and a couple bottles of local hooch..."

Jay looked down and grinned.

"... well, when I came back, I had a real surprise waiting for me..."

...

Cenerea, 3rd planet from the star Letria, Regalius,

The Abandoned ERU Particle Accelerator,

Forty-Three Cenerean Years Ago

Meta pushed back from the terminal in fear. "Fuck! What the hell is this thing?"

Red flashing lights lit throughout the entire complex. Emergency horns blared through the tunnels.

Browne, Josie, and Tank raced into the server room, the trio all out of breath.

"What the hell is going on Harold??!?" Browne asked frightened.

"I don't know...this machine you gave me the intel on, whatever the fuck that thing is, just latched on to me and I can't shake it! It's too fast! I've never seen anything like it! It's tearing through every security measure like paper as if my firewalls don't even exist."

"Do you think it can find us?"

"It already has. We need to leave, NOW! It's in this room!" Harold spotted the security feeds from the various cameras switching focus. It was watching them.

The four rebels quickly ran for the ladder to evacuate the underground complex. Tank lifted Josie up and followed close behind.

Tank looked down at Browne. "Come on, let's go! What are you waiting on Browne??!?" he shouted from the top of the open hole.

"I forgot my terminal pad. It has all of the locations of the rebel hideouts! I need to go get it!"

"We don't have time..."

Harold and Browne looked at each other as they heard the sound of machine gun fire.

Josie screamed and fell silent. Harold could see Tank rise up and brandish his shiny pistol. Pink mist burst from his face. Blood splatter rained down on Harold and Browne followed by the massive lifeless body of Tank tumbling through the hole above them.

"Move!" Harold shoved Browne out of the way, barely avoiding the large man's corpse as it thudded to the concrete floor of the bunker. Harold heard the sound of several aerialcraft descending, their engine noise and the shouts of soldiers spilling out onto the ground echoing through the hallways.

Harold and Browne tore down the tube away from the coming soldiers. Their hearts raced as they headed toward the particle accelerator shaft that ran underneath the ground in a two-kilometer long circle. Harold hoped they could get 'lost' in there long enough to come up with some sort of escape plan. That hatch was the only way out. Maybe they wouldn't know anyone else was down here.

"What are we going to do?" Browne inquired each word after a quick short breath.

"Hide until we can come up with something. They will kill us...fuck! How could I have been so reckless?" Harold could feel the adrenaline coursing through his body.

"It's not your fault, Harold...it's mine. I should have vetted the info."

The two hacktivists stopped at the door to the accelerator tube. It was stuck. "NO! Shit, shit, shit!" He banged the handle quietly with his fist. "Step back!" Harold raised a leg and kicked the handle with his foot. He could hear the soldiers' boots coming down the hall. Radio static and squelching voices from comm systems were reporting statuses. It sounded like the soldiers were closing in from both directions...and fast.

The door swung opened with a loud screech and slammed back against the wall. "Well, there goes our invisibility..." Harold said in despair.

The pair stepped into the tube through the open doorway and Harold pushed the heavy door closed and spun the lock.

"Come on, let's go, Browne! We need to try to find someplace to hide in here!"

Several meters down the tube, Harold heard the access door violently swing open behind them. "Stop or we will shoot you!" shouted a soldier in some very strange camouflaged armor. She looked like she was wearing a robot.

Harold glanced over his shoulder. "What the hell? How did they...?"

More soldiers were leaping through the doorway. They had covered the distance between the opening and Harold within seconds, bouncing through the tubes closer and closer. "That's impossible. It has to be that armor!" Harold thought as he watched them move like super humans. "Stop, Browne. Just stop or they are going to kill us!"

Harold slowed to a jog and bent over to take a breath just in time to catch the butt of a rifle to his head. Everything went dark.

...

"...and that was the last time I ever saw Browne again."

Jay was incredulous. That was the craziest story he had ever heard. The young man looked down and released his grip from his pants legs. "That is insane, Harold! I would have never thought you lived such an exciting life."

"I wouldn't call what happened next so exciting."

"So, okay, you got busted by the Military and then what?"

"I woke up with soldiers dragging me down into the bowels of some anthill-like facility. I still remember it like yesterday. They held me by the arms, my wrists bound together, carrying my bruised body and ego through some tunnel."

"When they removed the hood from my face there she was, this vision in a lab coat. The most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes upon and one oblivious to anything going on around her. She walked toward us, typing something into a terminal pad and fumbling with her drink. The guards attempted to warn her, but their warnings fell on deaf ears. The scientist looked up just in time to dump her drink on me and my Military 'friends'."

"Jay, she was so beautiful and we were so close. I mean, there she was apologizing profusely with her cute porcelain face pink from embarrassment. And so kind, even tried to wipe her drink off me, some unknown scumbag with blue hair way beneath her standing. Then the guards shoved her aside mentioning how dangerous I was. I watched her hurry down the hall as my entourage and I continued toward the interrogation cells. I had no idea who she was because she didn't have her ID on her. The only identification of who she might have been was what I saw printed down her coat sleeve. 'Geneticus'."

"Geneticus? What is that?"

"Project Geneticus."

"Never heard of it."

The old man sported a slanted grin, "You have. You just don't know you have. You've been hearing about that ol' A.I. your entire life. Same date and same time, every year."

"The Great War Machine? "

"And we have a winner...ding ding!"

"Are you kidding me? Seriously?"

"No lie."

"All of Society reads this story and sings that song and just you, Harold Bouri the University Instructor, Chancellor Santum, and probably a handful of other older people are the only ones that even know the true history behind the words. Damn. This is so amazing...and to think, you even battled it."

"Trust me, it wasn't a battle."

"Just saying..."

"Call me crazy, but the thought of this woman was what kept me going I suppose. After those men were finished with me and I was alone in my cell, I just kept thinking about her. I don't know why she made such an impact on me. Maybe it was her kindness? Maybe it was her beauty? Maybe both. Regardless, I was broken, tore down, mentally and physically. Eventually, I did any and everything the military asked, including turning in my best friends. I even helped to track many other hacktivists down. I know, I know what you might be thinking, but you really have no idea what it's like. What they do to you..."

Harold paused. "The day the Confederation Military brass came to my cell and gave me a choice...work for them outing Sub-Region hacktivists, one on probation mind you, or scratch the number of days that passed on the four walls of a prison cell the rest of my rebellious life. It was a no-brainer. I went from hero of the resistance, to enemy #1. Jay, I sold my soul to the Military not to avoid prison, but for the off chance I might get to see, or better yet, speak to this angel in a lab coat. What was done was done. I was never going back to my old life and I knew that for certain. Jay, even though I knew this whole fantasy life I concocted in my head was far-fetched...a pipe dream, even, I thought that maybe if I could find her, maybe I could make a real one, with her..."

"And?"

"My first assignment as a Military consultant was to...I'll give you three guesses."

"You're kidding?" Jay laughed. "That's how you met your wife?"

"Jay, there she was, the lead developer of the Geneticus Project standing right before me in that lab. I couldn't believe it. Fate combined with my networking and hacking expertise put me working side-by-side developing and improving the most advanced A.I. ever known to man with the woman of my dreams. My wife-to-be Wendy. That was in essence the beginning of what I thought would be 'happily ever after' as it were, be damned Society. I had never felt so much love and warmth. We were so happy and in love with each other and the work, the good I had convinced myself we were doing. Wendy made me feel as if we were on the right side of history. Even though, deep down, I knew what I was doing was wrong. I had nowhere else to go, and she loved me...scars and all."

"That sounds like you and your wife's life was meant to be."

"This might seem to be true, Jay. But, when we first met I was not her first love. There was this guy named Gil..."