Paragon

by Rob RodenParker

  "Is there a point to this?"

  "The point is...these sorts of people are idealists, they believe that humanity should be forging forward, discovering new technologies, expanding throughout the stars, increasing our understanding of the world at large, and generally, you know, not be sitting on our asses. This is at odds with the general population however, who are perfectly content so long as they've got their yearly subs to the centers sorted out. So, these guys are a minority group, right? But they're pretty vocal, and they view Alpha Corp as some sort of beacon of hope. So, now we've attacked one of their primary research centers and killed one of their top researchers, they're going to feel like we're sending a message of oppression of something, and, oppression doesn't really sit well with humans."

  "You said they're a minority. What can they do really?"

  "They are a minority, but this will just lend public support to them. There are also a lot of traditionalists out there, who believe going through an education is the right way to prepare for life. All in all, their numbers are considerable, but it's not just a numbers game, Kepp."

  Kepp scratched his head.

  "So...I guess we'll have to do something about them?"

  "I doubt it'll be down to us, the government will probably throw them a bone, keep them happy for now, but those of the populace who are currently happy with their lifestyle aren't going to like being pushed through education. It's a bit of a tightrope. I doubt there will be any relaxation of the rules and guidelines set in place for research though, I don't think the government is willing to relinquish the one form of control it has over this.”

  "So-"

  They were interrupted as the attending surgeon entered the waiting room, his green scrubs covered with blood.

  "Thought I'd just let you know, the operation went well. We had to transplant his liver, given that the old one was damaged beyond repair. It'll take him a few months, but he should make a full recovery,"

  Haur nodded.

  "Thanks for the news." He turned to Kepp, "well, I'm going to get some rest, I imagine I'll see you at the debrief, but if not, then it was good working with you."

  "Thanks Haur. You did a good job."

  Kepp didn't move from his seat. He cupped his chin in his hands again, and turned over the pieces of information Haur had given him in his mind. Was it really like that now? Did it even matter?

  I don't have any control over this anyway. It's useless thinking about it.

  His thoughts drifted back to Julia, and her killer, Morian, still at large somewhere. Kepp clenched a fist.

  "I'll find you, and make you suffer," he muttered, re-affirming his resolve.

  Chapter 7 – Reasons II

  Astropedia Entry: Transportation

  Aerial: Major breakthroughs have been made in the field of aeronautical science and engineering. The most important of which was the development of a scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) for atmospheric flight (first commercial flight was the year 2125, These engines allowed planes to achieve speeds of up to Mach 8, making intercontinental travel fast and efficient. Scramjet craft are three stage devices, which operate from standstill to ~Mach 2 using a conventional turbine engine, and then after Mach 2, the intake geometry changes, and the turbine blades fold into the body of the engine to allow supersonic compression and combustion to take place.

  Space: With the advent of nuclear fusion (first commercial plant came online in the year 2100), this allowed the development of an electro-thermal reaction thruster, known as the PFM drive. It works by using the electricity generated by a fusion reactor to set up an extremely strong electric field, through which ionized particles are passed. These ions are accelerated through the field, and propel the craft forward via the principle of Newton's third law. PFM drives can fly in atmospheric conditions because particles are much more plentiful and so more thrust can be generated. However, since compact fusion reactors are extremely costly, there are very few privately owned space-faring ships at the moment.

  Rail: Maglev trains are the standard service in rail networks everywhere, with trains able to run at Mach 2.

  Personal: Personal transport has evolved, and although people are still using cars, these cars are now able to fly. A more accurate description would be a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing craft). These also work on the principle of the PFM Drive, however instead of having an onboard fusion reactor, they use batteries and super-capacitors to provide the necessary voltage. Operational time for a hover car is around six hours between recharges. A car can be recharged off the national grid (using five socket connectors) in around an hour.

  The Paradigm food hall stood in the grips of the mid-morning lull. Only a few people sat around the metal tables, in a high ceilinged room big enough for nearly a hundred. Utilitarian food dispensing machines stood quietly in their recesses, on standby. Along one wall, a large, turned off display screen was located, it's surface glossy black.

  Kepp sat, hunched over his food; half a baguette and an undefinable bowl of soup. He dipped his spoon in and out of the yellowy liquid, watching as vortices spun their way across its surface. Waiting in the base for a debrief was a pain in the ass. He had better things to do, like continuing in his search for Morian. Although it had been five years since their last encounter, Kepp knew he was alive somewhere, and intended to change that.

  A pair of hands covered his eyes.

  "Guess who!" came a young female voice.

  "Jess."

  Jess lifted her hands and sat down in the seat next to him. She was dressed in jeans and a white shirt, over which she wore a jacket. Kepp noticed she looked a bit pensive.

  "What's up, Jess?" he asked, putting down his spoon.

  "Well," began Jess slowly, "aren't you mad?"

  "At you? I guess I should be, shouldn't I? Do you want me to be?"

  "N-no..." replied Jess, "I just...thought it was weird, that's all."

  Kepp took a bite of his bread. "You want some?"

  "No, it's okay. I'm not hungry," Jess replied, biting her thumb a little. Kepp sighed inwardly, and put the baguette on the table.

  "What's up Jess?"

  "Well. I wanted to apologize to you," she said, face reddening a bit. "You know, about those things I said when we were back in London. I didn't mean it."

  Kepp smiled.

  "No worries, I know you didn't."

  "And...I also wanted to tell you not to worry about me too much," Jess said, looking directly at Kepp. "Saro said they would take good care of me, he has a room organized for me on site, and they are paying for all my food and living expenses. So you don't need to worry, okay?"

  "I'm not worried about that," Kepp replied. He paused, then turned in his seat to face Jess. "Look, I know that to you, Paradigm seems like a...I don't know, a bunch of knights in shining armor, but in order to get rid of the bad guys, we do some pretty crappy things to them, you know? It's actually your innocence I'm worried about, a child should be a child for as long as possible; growing up too fast is bad for you."

  He saw Jess open her mouth to protest, but raised a finger to silence her, and carried on talking, pre-empting her reply.

  "Yes, I know you don't view yourself as a child, and I know you've heard and seen a lot of stuff on the news and the SolarWeb, but it's different to living it. I hope you can realize that. I know Saro, he cares for his workers, but he can be a ruthless bastard too."

  "Saro said he would protect me, and make sure I don't get out of my depth," replied Jess, "but thanks, bro. I know you're looking out for me."

  "Those are just the words of a man, don't take them to be the word of a god. You'll need to look out for yourself too."

  Jess tossed her hair.

  "You're lecturing me again...but I'm going to let it go, since you're just worried about me," she declared, with a slight smile.

  Kepp's implant pulsed with a message from James Lee: "Report to briefing room two ASAP. Urgent."

  "Just got a call from the mission direc
tor. I need to go," said Kepp. He ruffled Jess' hair. "Take care, I'll see you soon."

  "Wait!" said Jess, as Kepp stood to leave. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a datapad. "The head analyst told me to give you this. He said you would know what to do with it."

  "Thanks," he took the datapad and shoved it into the pocket of his trench coat. He paused, then turned to give Jess a quick hug, much to her embarrassment, before striding off.

  Kepp marched through the marble floored corridors of the Paradigm facility, towards the briefing room. He entered without knocking, and was greeted by James and a very sleepy looking Haur. They then turned their attention to the holo-projector in the middle of the table.

  "It's all going to shit, Kepp," James said. "Just listen to this." He pressed a button, which started playing the recorded broadcast.

  "And now we cut to Alpha Cybernetics' special emergency press release."

  The view cut to a man, stood behind a podium. Kepp startled in his chair as he saw the man's face, his eyes wide in disbelief. It was Morian.

  "Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I, as the newly elected vice-president of the Alpha Cybernetics Corporation, would like to inform the world of a tragic turn of events. Late last night, our president was assassinated within his home. The motive is unclear, and the perpetrator is still at large. Not only that, but our research facility in the Arizona desert was destroyed this morning, and one of our prominent researchers, Dr. Hiro Kanzoku, was found dead in his room. We suspect murder. We grieve for the loss of these two very fine people. However, we also wish to reveal the startling revelation that we believe the government, or some faction within the government is responsible for perpetrating these acts."

  Morian's voice rose in intensity, he gripped the podium and leant forward, eyes boring into the camera.

  "Let it be known that our corporation will not stand for this sort of corruption and conduct within the ruling power of humanity. Let it be known, that I will not stop until justice is delivered. We ask those citizens who believe in this cause, those who believe in true justice, to stand up and make their voices heard! That is all."

  Morian ignored the flood of journalists pressing forward, desperately shouting questions and strode off the stage. The view cut back to a newsroom studio. James paused the recording.

  "So far, we've heard reports of some demonstrations in some major cities around the world; London, Beijing, New York. So far, all have been peaceful and well contained by the police force, but this isn't good."

  "That guy was practically inciting the public to riot," mused Haur, "but are the public really that easily taken in?"

  "Alpha Cybernetics also released security camera footage of Hiro's death. Maybe Kepp wasn't careful enough, or more likely, the footage was fake."

  Kepp sat in silence. He hardly heard James' words.

  "Right," James continued, "So we've got to put a stop to this, but the situation is tricky now. If that guy was to just disappear, public reaction won't be good. This bastard has put us in a tough place."

  "So, what's our course of action?" asked Haur.

  "We can't do anything for now, we've got people following his every move, as soon as we identify a place where we can get him alone, we'll send you guys in to get some information out of him."

  "How many people in Paradigm are involved with this case, James? The reason I ask is because something here doesn't seem right to me, how did he know that it was us who made the raid on the research facility? The assault craft was unmarked, and none of us could have been identified."

  "You're saying we have a security leak?" James replied, "I'll look into it. Better safe than sorry."

  "Good," nodded Haur.

  The conversation around Kepp was a blur, as he stared at the frozen holographic image. Morian was alive.

  "Wait a second, did we kill the president too?" asked Haur.

  "No," James replied, "No idea how that poor bastard died, but Alpha are obviously playing for something here if they come out making accusations like that. We need to find out what."

  The projector hummed in the middle of the table, as the holographic image stood still in the air. James rubbed the stubble on his chin thoughtfully, before speaking.

  "Let's do it like this: we'll send the two of you to London, get in touch with our contact there, and then you can trail Morian until you feel it's appropriate to make an entrance."

  "That's a pretty open brief..." replied Haur. "What do you want us to do when you've got him?"

  "I need some time to prepare things we need to know, but I'll forward you a list once I've compiled it."

  James looked at Kepp; he sat forward on his chair, staring into the holograph.

  "Kepp, you listening? You haven't said a word."

  Kepp seemed to be shaken out of his reverie.

  "Yeah...yeah. I understand."

  "Good, get some sleep or take some drugs, you need to be awake for this mission."

  James stood up, running a hand through his greying hair.

  "I shall leave you to prepare, gentlemen. You have two hours before the shuttle leaves."

  James left the room, covering the distance to his office in quick strides. His implants fired on all cylinders, sending messages and coordinating between contacts, setting locations and places. There was a lot to do.

  Haur switched off the projector as James left the room. He couldn't help but think about the potential this mission had to blow up in their faces like the last one, with possibly even worse consequences. I wonder how Tenzen is doing, he thought.

  He was about to leave the room when he noticed Kepp still sat in his chair, head propped on his hands, staring into blank space. He slapped Kepp on the back.

  "Briefings over! What's up with you?"

  Kepp looked up at him slowly.

  "Haur. This man, I have to kill him." Kepp spoke slowly, the words dripped out of his mouth with venom.

  Footsteps from the hall outside echoed into the room dimly. Haur shut the door.

  "I'm not sure how much attention you were paying, but I think the mission director pretty much decided we couldn't do that."

  "It doesn't matter."

  Haur put two and two together.

  "Revenge, huh?"

  Kepp merely nodded. He then seemed to come to life, as if by stating Kepp's purpose, Haur had goaded him into action. He stood up swiftly, and donned his trench coat.

  "We have prep to do. Let's go." Kepp jerked the door open and was gone.

  "Hold on a sec..." began Haur, but Kepp was already out of the room. Haur rubbed his forehead, slightly exasperated, but followed Kepp in short order.

  The tech lab where Jess was posted was busy today. It was a medium-sized open plan office, with six analysts including herself. Each had a large cell to themselves, bordered on three sides by work desks and large glass display screens. The room was very quiet, the silence only being broken by the dim hum of the projectors and the air conditioning unit, punctuated by fingers tapping on interfaces. Jess saw bits of data flash back and forth as the other analysts worked, their hands tracing across the touchscreen displays. They were definitely working harder than they were this morning, she thought.

  She nursed a cup of coffee as she sat in front of her own displays, a computational optimization problem displayed across the touchscreen in front of her. It was fair enough that they weren't letting her work on the really interesting projects just yet, but she couldn't help but feel a little bored by the trivial yet time-consuming first task they had assigned her.

  The door flew open and James Lee burst into the office, right behind her. Jess spun around in surprise, nearly knocking over her coffee. James marched up to her desk. He extended a hand.

  "I'm James Lee, the mission director of Paradigm. You're Jess Carver, just started here right? Kepp's little sister?"

  "Y..yes," managed Jess, taking the proffered hand.

  "The other analysts in this cell are busy with mission critical tasks, but I
need someone to run some background traces, and I don't have time to do it myself." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a datapad.

  "Sir, I'd be happy to help you." replied Jess, "But I don't know how to, so if you can show me?"

  "New recruits these days, don't know a thing!" exclaimed James, causing Jess to tense. He then smiled, his face creasing. "Don't worry, I know you're not an ordinary new recruit. That was a joke."