EDEN
Chapter 1
Bleakmoor
June 22, 2088
Tuesday, 8:25 p.m.
[Three Years Post-EDEN Global Implementation]
The chair creaked as she shifted in her seat. She turned her gaze from the black screen to the window, and looked at the night sky. Only a few stars were visible. The moon was a pale crescent, and Venus, the brightest planet, hung close to its curve. She turned her gaze to her daughter, who lay curled on the old sofa. Its fabric was worn and frayed in places, a few threads hanging loose. She watched the subtle rhythm of her small frame expanding and contracting with each breath. She looked back at the black screen, leaned against the back of the chair, and closed her eyes.
And slowly, exhaustion took over, and she drifted to sleep.
Five coded knocks – three quick, two slow-paced – brought her back to the present world. She jerked upright. Her eyes flew to her daughter. She's still asleep. She sighed in relief.
She slipped the key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door. Marcus entered, locked the door, and leaned against it, breathing hard.
"What happened?" Elianila asked in a tight voice, almost in a whisper. "Did you get in touch with her?"
He looked at her and shook his head, his expression grim.
He swallowed hard. "The hardline was compromised. They're listening. EDEN tracked the signal frequency. They... they know where the call came from."
Her gaze snapped towards the window, then back to him. "Were you followed?"
He shook his head. "I took the drainage tunnel, watched the alley for ten minutes before I crossed. No drones. No patrols. No tails."
She brought a hand to her head, her palm pressed flat against her temple, eyes shut, fingers curling into the hair. She sighed. Her hand fell away, her gaze falling to the floor, to the cracked tile and the dust. Then she looked up, met Marcu's eyes, and turned her head towards her sleeping daughter. Her eyes lingered for a moment before shifting to the black screen of her laptop.
"Then we look," she said.
*****
9:40 p.m.
The sound of a soft rhythmic breathing pulled her gaze to the adjacent chair. Marcus had finally succumbed to exhaustion, his head tilted back. Her eyes then drifted to the sofa, where her daughter shifted on the sofa, a tiny sigh escaping her lips. She watched them for some time, then, slowly, turned back to the screen.
She closed all the windows, opened a terminal and wrote the script. It generated hundreds of authentication tokens per second, each one a guess. Each token was blocked, so the script rewrote itself with new variables and a new structure. The firewall blacklisted one version but the next version was different. By the time the firewall added the first version to the blacklist, the script was already sending a second version, then a third, then a hundred. It continued until one token was accepted. The door opened.
The screen went black for a second then data began to cascade across the screen – real-time surveillance feeds, processing logs, neural network activation patterns, and behavioural scores.
Her eyes settled on global statistics status.
Population under Surveillance: 7, 847, 568, 021
Active Processing Streams: 4, 847, 338
Detection Events (24hrs): 48, 021
Scrolling to resolution statistics, her eyes widened in disbelief, then narrowed in dread.
Total Flagged (Cumulative): 386, 383, 104
Processed to Completion: 381, 940, 287
Pending Resolution: 4, 442, 817
The system assessed its detection accuracy at 98.4% - a number so high Elianila felt it was less statistics and more like a verdict.
A soft groan broke the silence. She glanced over as Marcus stirred, rubbing a hand over his face as he woke from his exhausted nap. His eyes, bleary and red-rimmed, found her still hunched over the screen.
"Any luck?" he asked, his voice rough with sleep.
She let out a slow, frustrated breath, shaking her head as she sank back in her chair.
"Look at the statics," she said.
Marcus turned the screen slightly towards himself.
"My goodness," he exclaimed after studying the data. "It's getting worse."
She nodded.
"At this point we can't shut it down," she said. "It has become more complex, well attuned, and guarded."
She slightly turned the monitor towards herself, and leaned closer.
"I want to find about the external source," she said, her eyes fixed on the screen as she hit some keys. "I want to know who is feeding EDEN the targeting data, who control it, what the source is, and if the source and the mirrors are connected."
"But you said we are too late to shut it down."
"That's true," she said. "But if we know who is behind it, if the external source s connected to the mirrors, we can pass that knowledge to the Alpha network, and they distribute to other networks. That way, the networks can find ways of infiltrating the external source, disrupt the mirror chain, sabotage the data flow, and so on."
"Hmm..." Marcus said. "But what are the mirrors?"
Elianila blinked. She had not told him of her discovery of the purpose of the mirrors. She told him what she had found.
"I see," he said. "But isn't it dangerous tracing the source from inside, and remotely"
"Yes, but we have to try."
"How long will it take?"
"It might take long. I have a fifteen-minute window."
"Okay," he said.
Elianila opened a new query window and began to trace the connection. She followed the data stream through the first relay, then the second, then the third.
The screen flickered.
A red alert flashed across the screen.
SECURITY BREACH DETECTED
UNAUTHORISED ACCESS – SECTOR 7
TRIANGULATION IN PROGRESS
PRECISION: 84%...88%...92%...
"No. No. No..."she whispered in horror, attempting to sever the connection.
She was too late.
"What is it?" Marcus asked.
"They found us."
"We have to move," he said.
He pulled out a hardline, an encrypted radio transmitter wrapped in black tape, the antenna bent, and pressed the power button. He sent the message: Raven. Empty Nestle. 30 Ash. He turned off the device, and strode into the next room to gather his things.
Elianila slammed the laptop shut, and walked to the room. She gathered her things, and her daughter's, shoved them in her backpack, and returned to the main room.
"Zara," she whispered, shaking her shoulder gently, then more firmly. "Wake up. We have to go."
Zara stirred, confused and heavy with sleep. "Mama..."
"We have to go," she repeated.
Marcus was waiting at the door, both his and Elianila's backpacks slung over each shoulder. Elianila emerged, her daughter's small hand firmly in hers. Without a word, he locked the door, and the three of them descended the staircase and out of the building's back gate.
*****
Somewhere in the ruins of Ashwall
11:20 p.m.
They stepped out of the taxi six blocks from the designated location and walked toward the badly damaged building. The street was nearly deserted. A few businesses were still open and a handful of people roamed the sidewalks.
Elianila noticed the streetlights were dead. The darkness would offer the cover they needed.
They stopped in front of the building.
A few seconds later, a figure emerged from the shadows of an alley, and approached them.
"Pastor Kim." Elianila cried, tears of relief at seeing him flooded her eyes.
He embraced her. A fatherly hug that let loose tears of betrayal, hurt, guilt and fear.
He released her and looked into her eyes, his hands gently gripping her arms. "I'm glad to see you," he said.
"Me too," she said.
He gave her a final squeeze then smoothed his hand over her daughter's hair.
"What is the situation, Pastor?" Marcus asked.
"Our temporary hiding place for now will be at the abandoned subway. The others, precisely, fifteen, will have arrived there within a half-an-hour."
Marcus nodded.
"Let's go," Pastor Kim said.
*****
Windrow
Thursday
10:50 p.m.
The subway had been abandoned for months. The entrance into the subway was partly damaged. A part of the roof and wall had fallen in, creating a pile of concrete and twisted metal bars. Past the broken entrance, a little light from outside didn't reach far in the interior, leaving most of the main tunnel in deep darkness. The air was cold and damp.
"This subway, similar to many other subways, was identified as 'security flaw' in their panopticon. The subways were where dissent festered. The networks the System couldn't perfectly monitor and control were sealed as they appeared a threat to it," Pastor Kim said.
Elianila cast another glance at the subway entrance, taking in its sorry state.
Twelve days had passed since they found refuge in the subway. Marcus, Pastor Kim, and other two men, would occasionally venture outside to determine the degree of safety around and several metres from the subway, and to get essential items.
Elianila was sitting on a flat section of rubble, her daughter asleep beside her. On her left was Pastor Kim. Marcus and the two men had ventured outside.
"I thought..." she said.
"We have to move," Marcus said, panting. "We're not safe."
"What do you mean?" Elianila asked, rising up.
"We saw three drones circling the buildings across the street. They weren't far, maybe twenty or thirty metres away above the rooftops."
"They're not on a patrol grid," one of the two men said. "They're hovering, dipping, and scanning the same perimeter."
Pastor Kim was already on his feet. "How long do we have?"
"Maybe two minutes before they drop lower and get a sonar ping off these tunnels," the other said.
Pastor Kim stood before the huddled group he had called. "We're not safe. Our location has been compromised. We have about two minutes to move from this location."
They hurriedly gathered their things. They had barely reached the main tunnel when they heard a piercing scream slicing through the air from somewhere above. It was a sound of pure terror, cut short completely it was more chilling than the scream itself.
Then they heard high-pitched whirling sounds of drones. Not one. Not two. Three... Maybe four.
They froze.
Elianila held her breath, feeling her daughter's body tense as the whining grew louder. She squeezed her hand gently, steadying herself as much as the child.
Will this be the end of her and the others hiding from the System? Will her daughter, who was holding her hand firmly, horror written on her face, be taken from her and sent to who-knows-where? She turned to look in the direction of the subway entrance, anticipating that their fate would be sealed.
"Let's move towards the Northern tunnel," Pastor Kim said.
Hurriedly, they scrambled through the darkness of the main tunnel, Marcus guiding them to the Northern tunnel.
When they reached the back of the tunnel, Marcus asked for assistance, tearing at a solid concrete wall. It revealed a gap behind a section of loose debris.
"There's a maintenance shaft," he said. "It connects to the old water treatment..."
He was cut off by the sounds of boots descending the rubble slope above them.
Everyone froze, their eyes meeting in a shared look of pure terror.
"Let's move," Marcus whispered.
Pastor Kim helped the people through the opening, steadying them as they dropped into the darkness below. Elianila dropped into the narrow opening, landing in ankle-deep water. The awful smell hit her – the stench of stagnant water, chemicals, and decay. Pastor Kim, the last to enter, pulled the concealment grate closed behind him just as the boots were getting closer to their hiding place.
They moved through the darkened tunnel, water sloshing softly around their feet. Behind them came the sounds of the soldiers searching the main tunnel.
They heard shouts. Equipment being moved. A high-raised commanding voice saying, "Nothing here. Expand the search parameters. They're on foot. They can't have gone far."
They moved in silence through the maintenance shaft.
After what felt like hours, Marcus stopped.
"This connects to the cathedral district," Marcus said. "From there, we can get to a safe house."
Elianila slumped against the curved tunnel wall and pressed her daughter's head on her chest.
"Let's move, "Marcus addressed the group. "We still have a long way to go."
They moved deeper, seventeen souls fleeing from an enemy that was bent on eliminating them.
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