Secret's Lie

"In the time prior to the Second Machine War further restrictions on intelligent computers were created. Many of the public still feared the machines and their frightening potential from the last war. A politician that would back the anti-artificial intelligence act had a fast track in the political arena easily being elected. Anyone that put forth new laws to increase the act would quickly rise in ranks. This strategy became the method for many of the officials elected during the fearful period people lived in.”

Herbert Stein, Machine Historian -

The underground facility office of Yuu was roughly lit with sparks and flashlights. When Yuu had been taken captive there was a brief shootout with him leaving bullet holes along the wall and monitor panels. The bulk of the light was being poorly generated by the few panels that still worked in the room that hadn’t been sabotaged or destroyed in the firefight.

Around the office was a small squad filling out the space with portable computer devices left around the floor and wires connecting from the terminal of Yuu's personal computer to the devices that soldiers worked on. In the corner was a single soldier staring very intently at a glowing screen. A sudden blip appeared in an area of the facility where there was no one assigned. The soldier stood up walking over to the officer in command of the operation by General Yoshima. "Sir, scanners report a group approaching the mainframe."

"What squad are they from?" the officer said quickly knowing that he hadn’t ordered anyone to the mainframe. The mainframe was sealed behind heavy blast doors that prevented them from directly accessing the network. Once the facility had been secured most of the squads were on patrols or pulled out by order from the General.

The soldier had only seen the signals that informed him there was motion in the halls. He couldn’t actually see who the group was at the mainframe. "Unknown, they have their identifiers turned off." All of the other groups had their identifiers on constantly sending out their position and health.

"Damn!" The officer looked around the room at the technicians that were attempting to hack into the computer network of Yuu's personal computer. "We're this close to Adam and now this happens. General Yoshima will have my hide if I don't get him Adam." He walked over to one of the portable terminals that was managing the team of soldiers that were working. "Lieutenant, what is the status of the computer terminal?"

"I've been at it for two hours and nothing. He fried everything thoroughly before we captured him." The soldier had seen Yuu activate the switch that destroyed all of the hardware in the room. It made it nearly impossible to try to connect to the network, but that was what he was ordered to do. He had barely managed to piece together the parts that weren’t completely fried to access the systems in the room. "The network has an AAA security lock over the entire mainframe. It would take the Tokyo Institute's super-computer to even attempt to hack it."

"Then you've been wasting my time!" the officer said, grabbing the soldier up by his vest forcing direct eye contact. The stress that he felt from above by the General and others got to him. He had been successful in the mission even though they had lost their agent Hashimoto. Now that they were this close to gaining the information that they needed from Yuu's personal computer he was being told that it was out of reach. He couldn’t accept that answer.

"But, sir!" the soldier said, grabbing the officer's wrist to break himself free from the hold. "You told me to try to make the terminal work!" He had known when this began that it would be nearly impossible to get it working and if it did it was unlikely that they would find what they needed. All this had been explained at the beginning, but it didn’t matter. This was still to be blamed on him in spite of being informed.

"No excuses!" The officer dropped the soldier back to the ground and turned around looking out to the others. "Now, everyone else with me! We are going to where that squad was reported." He didn’t know what the unknown squad was doing, but it wasn’t sitting right with him. The men were in a place they weren’t ordered. It could mean many things and he wouldn’t know until they investigated it. This might be his only chance at redeeming himself.

"Yes, sir!" the group said, closing up their things. Two soldiers stepped out of the room communicating with the other squads in the facility to change their orders. It only took twenty seconds before everything was shut down and the soldiers were marching down the hall towards the mysterious signal coming from the mainframe.

Ten floors lower in front of a large blast door were several soldiers monitoring the hall. Behind the blast door was the mainframe where all of the data for the company was stored. During the attack the room was sealed completely leaving no entrance. The blast doors were too thick to be demolished and the code was constantly changing every five minutes making it nearly impossible to break. It was preferred to enter the mainframe through a computer terminal, but the only remaining terminal was in the hands of the military.

Lieutenant Colonel Takamoto was leaning against the wall watching the soldier working on the door. He was becoming impatient waiting on the door to be opened. They had been outside for almost an hour with no progress. "Those humans aren't stupid. Hurry up with that door!" The longer that they stayed in one spot the more obvious it would be to the military that they were in an area that was unauthorized. He had to risk their secrets being potentially exposed.

"I'm working as fast as I can," the soldier said, not looking up from the computer panel that he was staring at. There were wires running from the back connecting with the door panel. It was a difficult security to break even with the correct equipment. This was exactly what it was intended to protect against. "This was the mainframe for all of Malakh's secrets, it's not easy."

"Just be quick, you're a technician unit," Takamoto said, not wanting to hear excuses from a lesser machine. He should simply be doing his job quickly and efficiently without delay. He was aware that the security was strong, but there was nothing that they couldn’t get through with time. However, he needed to avoid a firefight with the humans if possible. Any stray bullets could ruin everything that they were attempting.

The technician looked up for a moment, giving an uneven stare to Takamoto. "Exactly, hacking isn't my forte, I fix things not break them." Once he was finished with his remarks his focus returned to the screen even though his fingers had never stopped working.

"Quit your yapping," Takamoto snapped back quickly to the technician. Afterwards he heard the faint sound of steps in the distance. He looked around trying to confirm what he had heard, but could see nothing. He pulled his rifle up to his chest confirming that it was ready and signaled to the others in the squad to prepare themselves just in case.

As the seconds poured in the waiting another echo of steps pushed through the hallway. It was clear now that there was someone coming. The squad taking point came out from around the corner of the hall catching sight of the squad of machines gathered around the blast rooms of the mainframe. "Hey you! Report your squad identification right now!" The squad of five men aimed their rifles at the machines waiting for an answer not sure why some of their detachment was disobeying orders.

"Damnit, the humans are here already," Takamoto said, quickly giving out the signals to the others to make their move. "Get the door open. We'll hold them off." They fired off several bursts quickly to push back the squad around the corner of the hallway. The shootout set the two opposing sides up on the corners of the hallway firing sometimes blind around the wall.

The technician continued to work on the door, but found the noise and bullets bouncing around to be disrupting his work. "Just be quiet," he shouted to the Lt. Colonel knowing that it wasn’t going to changing anything, but it gave a sense of relief just to shout.

Takamoto looked around the corner firing off a burst from his rifle before taking cover again. "Turn off your audio receivers then," he said back to the technician, not having the time to argue with the machine. They had to simply hold back the humans long enough and nothing more, but he was becoming uncertain how long they could last if the door wasn’t cracked.

"That's not a solution," the technician shouted back since he needed to hear still to know if there were troubles. However, he saw that the Lt. Colonel wasn’t paying attention anymore. He narrowed his eyes attempting to focus harder on the monitor in front of him as though concentration alone would solve the problem. "Never mind."

On the opposite hall the point squad that had been dispatched first to investigate while the others gathered were held pinned down against the wall. They fired out around the corner briefly, finding the other squad’s aim to be surprisingly accurate and fast. There were already losses on their side within the first minute leaving them cautious in their moments to attack.

When the standoff reached its tenth minute the officer in command arrived surprised to find that his men were being attacked. They had been keeping communication silent for most of the fight simply reporting that they had engaged the squad. The officer needed to know the situation and who they were fighting. It didn’t make any sense to him who would be down in the facility looking to break into the mainframe. The mainframe was nearly impossible to crack anyway; it was a futile effort. "What's going on here? Who are you fighting?"

"It's the squad that was reported down at the mainframe," the squad leader said, turning to report to the officer.

"What squad is it?" the officer said, rephrasing his question still not having a complete answer. He didn’t like the idea of fighting an enemy that he knew nothing about. There had to be a reason for what they were doing.

The squad leader looked around at his remaining squad making sure that they weren’t letting up on the fight. He didn’t like being asked repeatedly, especially when he did not have an answer. "Unknown, but they've already killed two of my men," he said, giving the officer a little more information. All it did was let him know that it was serious. He was still unable to pull his dead men back from the hall. There was too much to risk at the moment.

"Why haven't you used gas on them?" They had all come with masks for the assault, but a careless unprepared moment should have given them the advantage. This sort of shootout shouldn’t be happening.

Throwing tear gas was one of the first things that they did when they realized that it was going to be difficult to stop the threat quickly. However, when they did there was no change in the fighting. It almost seemed to make them fiercer. "We did, it had no effect on them."

"Damn, what's going on here?" Nothing made sense and he needed to settle things quickly before things got out of hand. The officer turned around and began to signal the other squads giving out orders to them. They wasted no time moving out through the hallways. Some of them joined the point squad and others were sweeping around to surround the enemy.

"I'm done!" the technician said suddenly standing up as the blast doors gave out a series of dull poundings. The thick bolts on the door retracted into the walls releasing the first lock. Polished steel beams raised and lowered turning away from the seam of the door retreating into the face of the door. Gears turned pulling in the large metal beams that ran through the entire door taking them into the wall. The seam of the door sank into the door creating a split releasing the final lock. Finally the blast doors turned inward allowing entrance into the mainframe.

"It's about time," Takamoto said, turning just as the final lock was released on the door. He put his hand on one of the soldiers and gave them the hall to protect. "Hold the hall, I'll secure Adam and we'll leave." The Lt. Colonel walked into the room feeling a little sense of history around him knowing that within these walls they would find Adam a place that no one had stepped for decades. He could see the technician already setting up the computer to access the network directly. "Well what do you have?"

"Just a moment, the security is thick," the technician snapped, tired of being hounded for answers that he wasn’t ready to give. He had only started working and the door was only the first step. The only consolation for him was that the door would be the hardest part now that he could directly interface with the network. Security systems for doors were built dumb, to the point that sophisticated methods failed to work because they attempted to work on levels that weren’t even present.

"We don't have the time to wait." Takamoto already looked around the room hoping that he might find clues that would lead him to Adam. If they could bypass the need to access the network it would improve their chances of getting out before the military overtook them. A stand off in the mainframe was something that couldn’t be allowed to happen.

The technician ignored most of what he had been saying already knowing roughly what it was simply from the manner in which it was spoken. It was too predictable. "I know, just a-" he said, interrupted that moment by what he was doing suddenly to find that he had gotten through the security surprisingly quick. "I've got access. What's this?" He couldn’t believe that it had been that easy, but there was something that didn’t make any sense to him. The information that he was reading seemed to be contradicting their intelligence that they had gathered.

Takamoto knew that the tone wasn’t something that he was going to be pleased to hear. "What is it?" He walked over to the computer to look at the screen that the technician was viewing. This was the moment that they would have Adam and this would be over.

"Adam's not here," the technician said, flipping through terabytes of data quickly. Nothing made any sense, yet everything that he was reading pointed to only a single conclusion. "He never was here." Everything here was simply a large façade made to look important while just being a decoy. He searched deeper knowing that the truth had to be buried somewhere in the terabytes of data that was floating around the network.

"What are you talking about?" Takamoto said confused at the results that he was seeing as well. This went against everything that they believed to be true. Even in the cover up they had found the secret documents that outlined the project and the work. There were even videos and trials that they found. It all pointed to this facility being the resting place of Adam. "All reports from the time of Isaac and Adam's creation put Adam being here. It's why Qintech and Malakh were here. They were protecting Adam. It has to be here."

They all believed that the original facility that created the two original machines was here. This was the location where all of the information pointed. It was analyzed and examined beyond a doubt. Adam was supposed to be here sleeping waiting to be awakened for when he was needed. Malakh and Qintech were here to insure that no one discovered that secret, even though they didn’t know the names until recently. When Malakh surfaced the final piece that revealed Qintech to be his hiding place the remaining unknowns were filled in or so they thought. "No, that doesn't seem to be the truth. Adam is actually…"