Chapter 1:
Beginnings
(03/04/01)
The story began with James, an eight-year-old Orphan, playing on the playground at school one day. James had few friends among the other students, who thought he was weird, but he didn’t really mind. After all, he had his imaginary friend Charlie (actually his manifest Avatar) to play with. Charlie helped him steal “candy” (Quintessence) and let him know when anything interesting was going on around him. One day, Charlie alerted James to the presence of a strange woman who seemed to have taken up a position across the street and was watching James every day on the playground. Charlie seemed curious about her, but James was shy and didn’t want to approach her at first.
The woman was Kyler, a former member of the Syndicate who had recently decided to defect from the Technocracy. Her sudden conversion had brought her into the employ of a powerful Virtual Adept named Gabriel. He had taken an interest in James and asked Kyler to gather information on him. She spent more than a week watching James until he finally worked up the courage to approach her one day after school. James and Kyler began making small talk (Kyler wanted to put him at ease before asking too many questions). They played a game of checkers on her computer, and he won.
However, James and Kyler’s bonding was interrupted by the sudden arrival of six Technocrats, the members of Kyler’s former amalgam. They had finally pinpointed her location and had shown up to apprehend her. Kyler, of course, fought back, and James pitched in to the best of his ability. However, they were badly outmatched, and things looked bad.
Fortunately, Gabriel had been keeping an eye on the situation and started trying to find backup for Kyler. One of the first people he called upon was Jennifer Monroe-Kennedy, his student of about a year. Jennifer was in her apartment nearby, working on the conspiracy theorist website she maintained, when she received an urgent email from Gabriel asking her to go to the park and help Kyler out of her tight situation. Somewhat grudgingly, Jennifer agreed.
Jennifer’s heart was in the right place, but her tactics left something to be desired. Attempting to create a distraction, she Correspondence-gated herself into the battle and landed directly in front of the Technocrats. Her idea was partially successful in that it drew attention away from James and Kyler and gave them the chance to make a run for it. They went in opposite directions, James to a church across the street from the school, Kyler toward James’ house. However, the attention that Jennifer drew to herself meant that one of the Technocrats shot her with a plasma rifle. Realizing she stood no chance, she decided to gate to the nearest secluded place to wait out the firefight—which was the confessional booth in the church.
In the church, Maria Montoya and Teal Williams, two Celestial Chorists, had just finished performing a worship service when a terrified James came running into the sanctuary. Teal took him into a side room to try to calm him down. Meanwhile, the Technocrats showed up claiming to be government agents raiding the building for drugs. Maria tried to fast-talk them out of the church by pretending to cooperate and distracting attention from where the action really was. While she did, Jennifer emerged from the confessional, went looking for Kyler, but only ended up barging in on Teal and James. Deciding the mission was futile, Jennifer took off running for her apartment, while Teal locked himself and James in the room.
The Technocrats weren’t fooled for long and soon began heading in the right direction again. Realizing he had managed to barricade them in the room, Teal used Prime to rip a hole in the wall in the hopes of leaving via the alley. Unfortunately, on their way out they met a HIT Mark in the alley behind the church, who nearly killed them both.
Not a moment too soon, everyone was suddenly teleported into Gabriel’s sanctum. He explained that he had overheard a rumor that the Technocracy had become interested in James. Now that everyone else had become associated with him, it would be in everyone’s best interest to stick together and take advantage of safety in numbers. With varying degrees of reluctance, everyone agreed.
Gabriel was kind enough to lodge James, Jennifer, Kyler, Maria, and Teal in a large house (with a small node) outside of Atlanta. Everyone set up shop and began preparing for whatever they might face in the coming days.