Previous Story: 74. The Real Secret Agent

The spider-shaped device landed with a crack and slid across the table. Buck, Pai, Lance, Flash, Ranger and Bolt all turned to Nix, who had just walked in. He looked exhausted.

"Long night?" asked Bolt.

Nix ignored her and nodded at the device. "That’s from my Agency partner. Inside is a data clip. Mike is warning us to get out of SL before the Omicron Protocol is enacted."

"The what protocol?" asked Buck.

"Doesn’t sound good," remarked Flash.

"I don’t know — yet," said Nix. "One of Mike’s commanders was able to locate a file with that name, but it’s well-encrypted. Pai, I thought maybe-"

Lance slid the device across the table to Pai, who immediately accessed the screen in her arm computer.

Buck turned to her. "Maybe we should get Artemis and Cyborg in on this. Shall I call them?"

"Do it," said Pai. "But, even with their help, cracking this may take awhile."

-----

Two days later, Nix came to check on her for at least the 10th time. Pai was working in one of the station’s interview rooms, and currently on a holo-projection call with Artemis. When they’d finished talking, Nix asked for an update. He was trying to be patient, but desperate to make progress.

"It’s looking pretty good," explained Pai. "Artemis and I have both been working on breaking the military encryption since the crisis began, so we have a good head start. We were dealing with a small sample size — whatever transmissions we were able to capture before the evacuation — but, with the addition of Mike's file, we have enough data to make progress. Cyborg is helping out, too; we’re taking it in shifts with the cracking tools — eliminating false positives and tuning the analysis parameters."

"You’ve lost me," admitted Nix. 

"Then stop wasting my time," replied Pai, nodding at the door. "You’ll be the first to know if we get anywhere."

-----

Ryder wasn’t entirely sure what was real and what was dream. He had called his big CyMS friend Drew — he didn’t know why — and Drew was now warning him to get out of San Lazaro. The CyMS also told him that he could find out more information using his secure private server. Only when Ryder woke up — his body clammy under the sheets of the bed in his makeshift bedroom — did he realize it was another dream.

Picking up some clothes from the pile near his bed, he groggily dressed, then left the room. Only Beater and Zephyr were around, and they were busy preparing themselves some food. Ryder didn’t even know what time of day it was. It was strange how things like that didn’t seem important to him any more.

Save them all.

That’s all that mattered.

Ryder entered his office and sat down at his desk. He swept a stack of papers onto the floor and activated his personal computer. Trying to blink away the haze in his eyes, he let his fingers do the work. It seemed like he didn’t even have to think these days. He just knew what had to be done — to save them all.

He focused on the screen, swiftly locating the back door to the government servers established when Cynfo hacked a high-ranking congressman. 

Accessing secure server … 

-----

Fei called Lady Rose into the little office she had set up to monitor Cynfo Tech. It was important to be comfortable, because she had fractured her ankle while escaping the server room in the basement of the Kilcline building. She was on powerful painkillers, which made it difficult to stay awake. To ensure she didn’t miss anything, Fei had created an alert triggered by activity on Cynfo’s secure server.

"What have you got?" asked Lady Rose, hurrying around the desk to stand beside her.

"He’s accessing it for the first time since I installed the tap. Could be what we’re looking for. Ah, he’s searching for a file. Weird — looks like encrypted military stuff. It’s opening, though. Emergency Protocols No. 363. Wonder what it’s all about."

-----

Nix was sitting next to Pai in the interview room. Five minutes earlier, Flash had fetched him from his bed, informing him that the three tech experts had made a breakthrough.

"We’ve cracked the files and started going through them," explained Pai. "If I’m not mistaken, this is what Mike wanted us to find."

Nix’s eyes scanned down the page, which seemed to detail the military response to any disaster in the field of bio/cybernetic weapons research. He had seen a number of military documents in his time, and this looked authentic. Pai began reading:

"Alpha Protocol — Affected facilities to be closed and contained. Beta Protocol — Affected personnel to be quarantined. Gamma Protocol — Affected facilities to be destroyed; affected personnel eliminated." Pai turned to Nix. "That’s pretty extreme."

"The army normally is — when it has to be."

----- 

Ryder Arcadia leaned forward, skipping to the parts of the document that caught his eye. 

Theta Protocol — Government personnel and law-enforcement officials to be evacuated from the quarantined city.

-----

Lady Rose was also reading from the page: "Kappa Protocol — Full lockdown of city using entropic barrier and all requisite force."

Fei was equally as fascinated: "Disperse airborne Purge Script v1.0 via nanites."

She and Lady Rose exchanged a concerned look. "This is major, boss."

-----

"Xi Protocol," said Nix. "Lockdown is temporarily relaxed with the aim of identifying a cure. Military and medical personnel permitted to treat affected subjects."

"I guess we’re not there yet," said Pai.

Nix kept reading: "Omicron Protocol — Disperse nanovirus via aerosol agent, causing implants to trigger mental overload and euthanize subjects."

"That would kill almost everyone in the city," said Pai, her eyes wide.

"Which is why Mike warned us," said Nix. "It could come at any time. We have to get out."

 ----

Ryder reread one line several times:

Omicron Protocol — Disperse nanovirus via aerosol agent, causing implants to trigger mental overload and euthanize subjects.

Nanovirus. Mental overload. Euthanize subjects.

When he at last turned away from the screen, Ryder felt real fear.

They’ll die. My CyMS friends will die. How can I save them? I must save them.

Next Story: 76. The Omicron Protocol - Part 2