Having been dismissed by Lucifer, yet again, team 0.2.8 climbed back into the car that had brought them to their destination. Brown in the back seat, Jones driving and Smith in the passenger seat. Jones drove with singular concentration, ignoring anything that might be passing through the communication channels. Smith appeared to be looking out of the window. Brown watched the back of his head.
“Why did you do that?” Brown’s voice carried through the channels.
“What?” Smith’s mild reply.
“Kill her.”
“I… didn’t…” Smith faltered.
“We were ordered to retrieve the target.”
“By Lucifer.”
“Yes.”
“His is not the only way of dealing with the rebels.”
“What other way do you propose?” Brown sounded genuinely curious.
“Not the only way…” Smith said out loud. Looking puzzled he raised a hand to his mouth.
Brown watched him, aware of Jones doing the same discreetly.
“I did not mean to say that.” Smith said, again out loud.
“Something is wrong.” Brown heard Jones’ voice through a private communication. Brown silently agreed, noting that the car had now turned in the direction of an operational plant, used for Agent upgrades and such.
Smith appeared too stunned to notice.
As the car stopped, Brown and Jones heard Lucifer’s voice distinctly through the channels,
“Analyse his code and report. Any deviation from the standard pattern is to be reset. If this is not possible 0.2.8 Command unit will be deconstructed.”
Within the operational plant several rebels were huddled in what appeared to be a disused basement area. They were waiting. Hidden behind cobwebbed equipment and various storage boxes they went unnoticed by the semi-human bot that entered the room to rummage in one of the boxes. The rebels held their breath. Several had looks of disgust on their faces in regards to the half-human in the room. The bot apparently found what it was looking for and left the room carrying a large brown folder.
One of the female rebels spat after it.
“I hate them!” Another declared vehemently.
“I don’t know what’s worse, the Agents or these pathetic ex-humans who want to be like them!” A further rebel added.
The fourth rebel remained silent for a moment, “If we can shut this place down it might bring some of them to their senses.” He added contemplatively.
The others looked at him curiously.
“Yeah, sure.” The first woman said, half-heartedly.
“Come on. Let’s go kick some synthetic ass!” The rebels moved out from the cover of the disused equipment and headed for the basement exit.
On one of the upper levels of a building across town, Lucifer was scrolling down a list of Agents not currently assigned to active duty. He wasn’t having much luck selecting the type of operatives that he wanted, since he was, in fact, searching for Agents that had not had any dealings with his Lieutenant. Lucifer would have cursed, had he been human. So far all the Agents that hadn’t had any contact with Raphael were only trainees, unsuitable for the current task. All the experienced units, or at least those with the required training for the task, had at least at some point in their training been in extended contact with Cherubim Lieutenants. And though Raphael was only one of four, Lucifer didn’t have the time to check how closely the sympathies of the others lay with Raphael’s line of argument.
Scanning endless lists Lucifer despaired of ever finding any suitable team, unless he constructed his own, which would take too much time. Then it struck him, his mistake had been looking for already formed teams. Lucifer began to scan lists of individual Agents. Almost immediately he found a suitable Combat unit. Mutuki was, apparently a specialised Combat unit. Eagerly glancing over the modifications Lucifer’s expression turned sour. Mutuki’s specialisations were permanently damaging to any and all rebels that he might be assigned to deal with. Giving in to human gestures, Lucifer let out a sigh as rubbed the bridge of his nose, he was certain that the last thing he needed was a Combat unit that acted as some sort of advanced ninja.
Another hour had passed, Lucifer noted, now scanning through the lists of Command units available. Here there were several possibilities, unfortunately the were already assigned… by other Cherubim, who were unwilling to give up their operatives, apart from Ophaniel, who had offered to swap Bates for Smith. An offer that Lucifer had politely declined, seeing as the other Command unit had, from Lucifer’s observations, pronounced psychopathic tendencies.
Were most advanced Agents dysfunctional? Lucifer was beginning to wonder. He moved on to Strategic units. At the top of the list were several advanced Strategic units that had already dealt with rebels. Brown’s name came up since 0.2.8 were officially engaged in reprocessing. Above him was Gil-Rhuven. Lucifer looked over his file and found similar reasons to discount this unit. He was seriously beginning to wonder if long exposure to rebels really did somehow ‘infect’ Agents; or if maybe, unlikely though it seemed, there was some small, horrific flaw in their coding, something that had been replicated, passed on from unit to unit, until it’s effects multiplied exponentially. The thought was too terrible to contemplate, even for Lucifer. Legions of flawed Agents, entire ranks lost to madness. Abominations; all of them.
The silence of the room in the operational plant was only disturbed by the beeping of monitoring devices, much like human cardiac monitors. There was no movement from the apparently comatose figure laid out on the table, stuck with various wires. A large glass window looked into the room, several inches thick and most likely not constructed of normal glass.
The observation room was a stark white much like it’s counterpart, apart from its lack of furnishings. Jones and Brown faced the glass, watching their Command unit in shut down. Inside the room they could see the monitors running code, sections being reorganised, deleted, amended, as per Lucifer’s instructions. Every so often one of the monitors would flash warningly.
“It is not working.” Brown said, breaking the silence.
“No.” Jones replied.
“Why?”
“His code is resisting alteration.”
There was silence. Brown looked about, almost nervous, then took a step closer to Jones. Jones looked down at him.
“The constant reintegration of code, the mutations… Could it be…” Brown couldn’t bring himself to finish the question.
“A virus.” Jones said, quietly.
21:35, 14/04/02