Chapter 1 – Infiltration

The time for religion has passed. Its need in the evolution of society is obsolete. While it gave birth to science as man first quested to understand why the thunder roared, rivers flooded, and the earth rumbled, and while at its height, it taught a moral sense of decency toward the majority long before the average man understood the true importance of such concepts, the time for religion has passed.

Religion is now a hindrance made up of litanies for punishment and promises of a sublime afterlife in exchange for blind obedience. While religion has created a true sense of unity and brotherly love within individual societies, it creates untold levels of strife and conflict when one religion clashes with another. The ideals of a religion are further tainted by the those within its structure seeking corrupted goals under the guise of religious propriety - for who dares question their leaders when simply doing so means questioning one’s heart and one’s beliefs.

Man is at the crossroad in history, he holds in his hand the wisdom to question his belief without quavering, to ask why the picture of afterlife coincides so serendipitously with man’s vision of perfection, to wonder why it is the nameless masses who are doomed to torment and not the known neighbor.

It is this wisdom which qualifies us for the next step in our societal evolution, to understand that not only should we care for each other but that we should work together under a common rule of law to strengthen ourselves. This wisdom teaches us the why of these things. Religion is no longer needed to teach our youth the ‘why’. And the ‘why’ is the question we still fight when those who embrace their false gods come against us for fear of what our truth represents. They come against us out of an ignorance of the true purpose of religion. Religion was an accidental quirk of group mechanics that proved highly beneficial to our development of society as the dominant species, but its need has passed to be replaced by a truer understanding of its benefits. We know the true God of humanity, and the name of that God is human, has always been human, for only we pave our destiny. - Credo of the Elite - Preamble to the New Constitution of Antarctic Republic of the Elite

A simple plan, go in and kill everyone who wasn’t his beloved Selena. Nash quietly motioned with two tiny slashes of his outstretched hand for the other two of his three-person team to spread out. He carefully watched as they vanished into the undergrowth around the base of the mountain. Their new recently-issued black suits were functioning as designed. Even at a hundred meters with his thermal scans set at the highest resolution, he could no longer make out the movements of his own men. Absolutely perfect.

The complex they were infiltrating was a Neo-Islam stronghold on the side Mount Pico de Loro in what used to be Columbia. A fortress lightly guarded in appearance only. Reports suggested that it was actually garrisoned with over two-hundred veteran, combat boosted soldiers. Most of the installation was underground. According to intel, the automated defenses were less than five years old and state of the art at the time of installation. This was the perfect scenario, the exact type of mission Nash and his unit was created for.

While waiting for his men to get into position, he altered his vision slightly to switch from thermal images to normal sight with an overlay of all electromagnetic fields in the area. The main weakness of this installation’s defenses was that the majority of its wiring wasn’t hardened, allowing it to spill out EM signatures of where all the wiring ran. Through this, he could identify at a distance where each camera, motion sensor, and any other type of detector lay. Budget cuts were the true affliction of all major security systems, meaning that someone somewhere saved some money by being thrifty. One just had to look for the accompanying weaknesses created when the system’s owner listened to their accountant.

After plotting out the best route through the alarms, he crouched down and scraped a tiny hole into the red scree at his feet. Pulling a small black egg-shaped disc from the pouch near the back of his belt, he pressed it into the hole then brushed the gravel back over it. This little EMP generator should be enough to knock out all of the external security measures, at least temporarily. Nash doubted that the entire system wasn’t hardened, so this would be a minor diversion at best as they tried to escape, little more than the magician’s smoke bomb before vanishing. But every little bit would be needed if they were fortunate enough to find Selena alive inside. If they didn’t find her alive, Nash had every intention of his small crew being the only one’s leaving alive meaning a retreat would be unnecessary.

Selena was a COVEC similar to Nash and his small group team. COVECs, being an anagram for COVert bio-Enhanced Cyborg, were the latest effort of the Elite to invade the religious governments prevalent throughout the equatorial belt of the world. Each COVEC was specially equipped to infiltrate deep undercover into other governments, gather and relay information, and eliminate various aspects of their foundations by any means available.

What had started out as an ideological war of faith versus the first nation based on positive eugenics defined by humanitarian concerns and scientific reason had devolved into open warfare and now existed under an unstable ceasefire for the last three years.

When the Elite had first formed, it started as a gathering of scientists and businessmen pursuing philanthropic ideals. Some even claimed it was descended from the Bilderberg Group. As the ever watchful eye of governments made it harder and harder to show any independent thought counter to the government's self-serving view, this group sought to have a place to gather in secret. With Antarctica still being the most remote location on the planet and the accord still in place not allowing for nations to colonize the continent, deep under the ice cap was ideal. The initial building of the first installation required small fortunes and years of secrecy, however once done, this caution proved justified.

At first, only the best and brightest were recruited to the Antartica station. As the installation grew, so did the number of those invited. By inviting only the best and the brightest the world had to offer the population grew. As numbers gathered, those invited would also bring their families. The power and wealth of the founding members insured that everything remained secret. This research station was called New Alamos.

This group founded itself under a loose doctrine which many would later see as an atheistic humanitarian approach to eugenics due to their willingness to modify genes, body, and mind in order to surpass the randomness of natural evolution. The entire doctrine was initially designed so that all branches of science could work together without the need for government bureaucracy or corporate patents muddying the efforts. With excessive amounts of funding from some of the richest philanthropist on the planet, research wasn’t just limited to the narrow view of what is most feasible to show a profit in the next few years.

When they finally revealed their presence in 2080 AD, the world as a whole accepted them at first, though public outcry soon followed with concerns that this was a true ideological war on faith. The very nature of this groups doctrine was tantamount to not playing god, but trying to replace God in the eyes of many. Even their name, Elite, came from the scientists eventually adopting the intended derogatory name the world had assigned, similar to how the Christians adopted their namesake a few millennia before.

The major nations and UN eventually issued a mandate decreeing that while they weren’t recognized as a sovereign nation, they were protected as an international settlement. In the process, this growing science hub grew increased in both size and prestige with satellite installations being built around the world.

Then in 2107 AD, World War Last occurred. Tensions in the world finally reached a boiling point. Regional wars merged into a global conflict which finally drew major powers into utilizing doomsday scenario tactics of total obliteration. The Elite revealed its true mastery of technology and infiltration by shutting down the war machines of all the major powers overnight. AI bots were the primary means of attack.

Sophisticated weaponry beyond the scope of what the major powers believed possible countered the brunt of the rest of the world's assault. The earliest models of the Covec's were revealed, they had infiltrated the major governments. The first Covec's (COVert bio-Enhanced Cyborg) were externally indistinguishable from normal humans. Each of the nations kept its own sovereignty, however the most war-like nations are forced to demilitarize.

What had started out as an ideological war of faith versus the Elite now spreads. While the Elite did not get involved in sovereign rule of a nation within its own borders or even bother to involve itself with trade or alliances, many placed blame on world problems at the feet of the Elite. Religious groups begin regional guerrilla warfare and strife in attempts to throw off the yoke of what they see as Elite oppression. The greatest destruction is caused by some of the religious groups as they war on each other and the Elite. For the first time in Earth’s history, nuclear weaponry is utilized on a massive scale, not by nations, but by small interest groups beyond the reach of the Elite.

While the Elites made continual efforts to remain detached from world politics, the COVEC’s were the Elites attempt to make sure that their enemies stayed unbalanced.

Becoming a COVEC was one of the most arduous training programs ever developed. Taking only the healthiest and smartest, the candidate's for this operation underwent chemical treatments which radically altered their bodies and usually wrecked most of the memories from their former lives. Nash was one of the lucky few who retained his memories. If this process which claimed a high percentage of lives was survived, they were then converted into cyborgs with all cybernetics concealed. The second portion of this operation was affectionately called ‘Morphing’ by those in the know and could be completed only in utmost secrecy at New Alamos, Antarctica.

Their target for this mission was the recovery of Selena. Selena was a COVEC similar to Nash, morphed about five years ago around the same time he was. While Nash was created more for assault and infiltration, Selena’s primary function was infiltration by seduction. Since applicants have much of their pre-morphing memories wrecked by the hallucinogenic aspects of the chemical treatments, they can only really form relations with those they meet after their morphing. Such was the case with Selena and Nash.

Selena had one major flaw for a COVEC, she was too impatient. After two years in the field, her performance reviews continually came in just under “Minimum Requirements.” With other COVEC’s ready to take her place, she was reassigned to the New Alamos training facility to work as an instructor of the new morphs.

Nash, on the other hand, was the most successful and the most decorated COVEC to date. Nash’s ability to analyze a situation and react with the proper solution along with total control of his emotions in the field got him promoted straight into administration, where his skills continued to shine. Three years after his morphing, he was a colonel, in charge of his own personal handpicked squad, and third in command for all special operations.

The two of them hit it off great, fell in love, and more or less became inseparable. If there was a celebrity couple at New Alamos, it was them.

It was then that Black Horizon, one of the eminent Neo-Islam groups, managed a great coup against New Alamos. They managed to smuggle a nuclear device into the COVEC factory past some of the most sophisticated heavy element gravity detectors ever created. Everyone in the factory and the adjoining school was lost. In the process, Black Horizon was able to take captive several key members of the COVEC administration, including Selena.

Black Horizon had been around for nearly three decades, moving from country to country around the world. As a whole, the Islam community disavowed them, declaring them ‘Shaitan’s Army’.

Most of the administrative staff were able to commit suicide, an acceptable tactic available to most through cybernetic implants. Selena was captured with a high voltage, neuro shock net shot at her from her blind side. It temporarily disabled her suicide functions long enough for the Black Horizon’s technicians to remove all suicide-related functions, cells, and devices from her body.

Black Horizon was also aware that Nash and three of his commandos were on a mission deep in Peru. They proceeded to blackmail him into doing their bidding in exchange for Selena’s life. Nash went along with their blackmail for about a month while his intelligence network tracked down Selena’s whereabouts. Normally one month is exceedingly quick to find such information, but Nash was in charge of or had access to several sectors of Elite Intelligence. The operations of Black Horizon were already known and once Nash had the location of Salena, it made today’s infiltration by the book.

Nash waited the designated amount of time while his friends got into position. Although his neural implants allowed him to secure communication with his team, any communication might be detected. Everything from this point on, until they met up, was to be done according to a strict timetable.

When the time came to move out, Nash slowly started toward the cliff face. If the new Black Suit work properly, he should be able to avoid all detection. His optics allowed him to see all laser trip wires, so they were easily maneuvered around. Arriving at the cliff face, he slowly started to climb. Out of each finger, from slits just below the fingernails, two hypodermic needles slid out. Each needle was only about half a centimeter in length and almost imperceptibly thin. Normally, these needles were used to administer any one of several toxins or serums his body’s endocrine system was capable of generating, however since the needles were made of an almost unbreakable ceramic and were fused to his bones, they made excellent climbing claws. Nash's augmented strength was such that he could easily slide the needles into the rocks allowing him to ascend the mountain almost as fast as he could climb a ladder. He reached the top without incident.

Now to wait another seven minutes to make sure the others got into position. About six minutes later, explosions of gunfire started sounding off to his left. Nash reasoned the proximity of the explosions would put that in Drake’s area of operation. Drake was a full assault model COVEC with no finesse about his appearance, he stood nearly eight feet tall and looked like someone had crudely combined his frame with several pieces of plastics and metal. Parts of his body, like his neck, were not even identifiable, because he didn’t have one. His head came straight out of his too broad shoulders. This was telling, as it immediately defined him as a later model COVEC designed when the Elite was looking more for super assault soldiers over infiltration experts.

This was not necessarily bad, as their plan allowed for up to two of the team to be discovered. Not good either. As long as one of them remained undiscovered and Black Horizon didn’t realize that they were under attack by COVECs, the plan should work. The real danger was that Black Horizon might discover that they were under attack by COVECs because they would not hesitate to destroy the mountaintop if it meant taking out such enemies. The reputation of COVECs was such that if they did realize they were under attack, they might quickly conclude they had already lost.

With clear vantage gained from his climb, Nash could see the entire complex. The complex was built just short of sitting at the top of its mountain. A little bit of the mountain rose up about another fifty meters behind the leveled surface burrowed into the mountain on which the complex stood on. Nash had climbed up over the actual top of the mountain and then scaled back down another twenty meters on the inner side. Viewing the complex, he visually verified that everything checked out with the satellite image he had downloaded. One large building, about forty by sixty meters, two stories high, and three outbuildings. The large building was only about 5 meters from the inner edge of the mountain.

A good jump would put Nash on the roof. He made out three guards. Allowing his targeting system to plot their locations and travel vectors, he pushed off of the wall less than a second after the gunfire started, spinning his body around mid-air. With a quick mental command, a Tearco Fire Ring Grenade dropped off of his bracelet and into his extended right hand. With a speed faster than a normal human eye could register, an H&K Flechette Pistol was drawn from its hip holster and in his left hand. This all happened in the time it took Nash to move a meter through the air away from the cliff.

Nash flung the grenade away from him. The Tearco Fire Ring left his hand as a black orb about the size of a walnut at a sharp downward angle. Shortly after it cleared a few meters to a safe distance from Nash, the holding clamps inside the black orb released and the orb expanded to a narrow ring one meter in diameter, level with the ground. As soon it had fully expanded, the ring ignited, bursting into a brilliant bluish-white fire. The ring quickly descended toward one of the three guards.

Before the fire ring hit, Nash had already unloaded several flechettes into each of the guards. His gun could launch up to twenty flechettes in less than a second, each one being a finned needle about two centimeters in length, barely perceptible when viewed from any distance. Each needle was made of a similar ceramic as Nash’s needled claws and even when fired at sub-sonic speeds so as to be silent, it could penetrate almost any normal body armor including the titanium laced vests the guards were wearing.

When the burning ring of fire landed on the crumpling guard, he burst into flames. The ring cut right through him, landed flat and on the concrete roof, and proceeded to burrow a circle into the roof. The incendiary which made up the Fire Ring was highly compact and designed to burn for approximately two minutes at over 4000 degrees Celsius. At that temperature, the ring could cut through almost anything, instantly vaporizing almost any metal or rock it came in contact with. He could hear the fading sounds as it quickly burned through level after level deeper into the complex

Nash landed on the roof, surveyed the situation, and advanced on the hole. Pulling a spy globe from his pocket he dropped it in the hold. The spy globe projected into Nash’s mind a hazy 3D image of everything around it as it dropped into the depths of the hole. Seeing that no one was in the two levels immediately below him, at least no one pointing a weapon at the opening, he jumped in. He dropped past the top level, to the ground level, and spread his legs, catching himself on the outer perimeter of the hole that the Fire Ring had just created. He quickly stepped clear of the hole, as the major danger of a Fire Ring to a COVEC was it hitting something explosive, like fuel tanks or ammo. The poison gasses created by vaporized steel and concrete were easily filtered by the internal filters in a standard COVEC’s lungs.

As soon as Nash had entered the complex, his neural uplink immediately attempted to access the Wide Area Network inside the complex. Nash had most of the codes so information was already becoming available from the complex’s system. Two unidentified prisoners were being held four levels down in interrogation. The map overlaid on his inner sight showed that he only needed to proceed down the hallway and drop down the elevator shaft to get to the prisoners. As he approached the elevator his neural uplink had already overrode its safeties and an empty elevator shaft stood open before him. He climbed down the shaft four levels in under ten seconds. Mentally opening the elevator doors, he tossed another spy globe through to make sure it was safe. Leaving the shaft, he then ran down the hall to the door of the interrogation room.

His mental clock told him that he had 4 more minutes before the rest of his team would pull out giving the appearance that the attack was over. Even now they should be backing off, giving the illusion that the countermeasures of the installation were working. Everything was going great, his neural uplink had totally dampened his presence this deep into the complex. Nash’s highly successful career in managing raids just like this more than supported his confidence.

The door before him was solid reinforced steel with a mechanical lock operating its opening systems. There was no way to override it with his uplink, its locking mechanism was not open to transmissions and the lock was too complex for him to pick. A quick kick confirmed that he wasn’t going to be able to kick it down either. The easiest way in, blowing the door with explosives, might hurt the prisoners.

Using his best guess as to the composition of the door, Nash extended his fingernail needles once more and jammed them into the door near where his sensors told him the locks were at. From his needles, an enzyme solution just fashioned by the specialized cells of his endocrine system was dripped out. This particular solution should quickly work through the metal of the door, making it brittle. Waiting two minutes, watching the color of the door change from a shiny silver to a dull gray around the locks, he tried kicking it again. The door budged a little this time, as parts of the dull gray fell to the ground, like flaking chalk. Nash had used up his reserve of nutrients required to fashion that particular enzyme, and it looked like it had worn itself out on the door. He kicked again, and again, only getting slight budges. The door had been weakened but time was running short.

All that was left was to try and force the door open. He took off two personal grenades from inside of his combat vest, activated their magnetic locks and stuck them to the already weakened sections of the door. Running down the hall several meters, he took cover as he sent an activation command to the grenades, not only telling them to explode but also at what yield to explode. The grenades went off with a thunderous roar.

So much for hoping Black Horizon would believe the main part of the attack was over. They would figure out any time now that their inner complex was still under attack and from deep within. Instead of just proceeding with a full lockdown, they would begin aggressively defending their mountain. They may even detonate the mountain if his grenades were to close to whatever they felt was sensitive. Time was really running out.

Rising up and running back to the now open door, he quickly scanned the room through the settling smoke.

In the back of the room were two examining tables each with a body on it. They were hooked up in just about every way imaginable with wires and tubes streaming out of their bodies. It almost looked as if some huge computer/machine beast was feeding on the bodies through the hundreds of wires. This was the true downside to being one of the Elite, a downside their enemies had never had qualms about exploiting. The Elite had no hindrances against using cybernetic implants to augment their lives in any way imaginable, as opposed to the Black Horizon’s belief which espoused a purity of body. Many religions of the world felt the soul was corrupted by such implants. These beliefs in no way hindered Black Horizon from taking advantage of the inherent weaknesses the Elite’s cybernetics allowed.

The two people on the table were definitely Elite, but both looked to be more civilian than military. Odd. Neither had the specialized implants of the Military and that probably meant they had none of the defenses against such overt hacking attempts. A quick bio scan showed that one was already dead and the other close. The one barely alive was a female in her late teens. Accessing his citizen registry, he identified her as Alicia Connors. A citizen of no rank or standing. However, she was the daughter of a rather important researcher in astronomical phenomena. Even that had no strategic importance to Black Horizon from what he could discern of her record or her mother’s record.

The other was Mizhad Galleria, a known lobbyist for animal rights. Again no reason Nash could fathom why Black Horizon might be interested. Probably a case of mistaken identity or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Quickly accessing their neural nets, neither of the two prisoners archives had been successfully breached. Nash chuckled to himself. Even the common citizens had neural nets with enough security to resist all the attempts of infiltration by outside sources. Nash had no doubt looking at their bodies that they had given up whatever information verbally that Black Horizon wanted, they were just trying to crack the neural nets to verify what they had already tortured out of their victims.

Nash rotated the head of Mizhad and inserted one of his hypodermic claws into the back of his head. Little known to most citizens, their primary neural implant unit was designed to be accessed directly in this way. The port sat just one millimeter inside the base of the skull. In such a manner, all of Mizhad’s stored knowledge within his neural net could be downloaded in under a second along the optic filaments which ran down Nash’s claw. Overriding Mizhad’s security codes with his own access codes, he downloaded the activist’s neural net. Nash figured it might be useful later to know not only how Black Horizon had captured him, but what information they were looking for during the interrogation. The file should also contain a complete log of the methods Black Horizon used in trying to hack the neural net. The Elite did not sacrifice its people, but it didn’t ignore any possible contribution such a sacrifice might mean.

He turned to access Alicia in a similar manner. She was definitely going to perish in the next few hours without medical attention, and Nash saw no way to get her the needed treatment. Her body was just too broken. Better to download her last cheerful recordings and pass it on to her family. Her mother had earned that much for her dutiful service to the Elite. It was the best he could do.

As he turned Alicia’s head and jammed in the needle, he saw about a meter above Alicia a glowing greenish orb with a yellow nimbus. Nash paused in uncertainty for easily the longest time he had ever done so during any combat situation. He had no clue what he was looking at. Not a single cybernetic implant of his could detect it, and although he could see the orb, hear a slight hum from it, and even feel a slight tingle on his skin as if it was emitting some sort of electrical field. This was not strange, this should be impossible. His continual diagnostics showed no problems in his cybernetics. The best his threat assessment routines could come up with was that some unidentified anomaly was before him which was shielded from all his implants and only visible to organic senses.

The main sub-routine he had in place guarding the various networks of the Complex suddenly sent an alarm, escalating the sub-routine to the primary focus of Nash’s neural net. The main threat to the mission was if Black Horizon had sent a suicide command to the complex. Generally, such an extreme response was only reserved for the most secret of their bases, and Nash really didn’t expect it to happen here. But it was happening. His sub-routines not only monitored the base’s communication web for the command but was also passively in place to countermand it if possible. The command had gone through. Now that Nash knew where the command went, he could assess the full threat. Looking over the command structure of the facility, comparing it to the information gained before he had entered, his best assessment program could only come up with one solution if a suicide command had been activated. A nuke was embedded somewhere in the base of the mountain complex. The arming sequence had been transmitted successfully. The nuke was charging and set to explode in less than ten seconds. The majority of Nash’s neural net was now devoted to working on telling the nuke to stand down.

Accessing information on the nuke showed it was not a regular nuclear device, but some kind of prototype bomb that would phase the energy output. All beyond Nash’s understanding, but he downloaded all the technical data he could and transmitted it to all the other team members just in case. Nash was a good soldier, even when operating outside of his normal command structure.

With the nuke now disarming, he focused back on the orb. It wasn’t moving. Not being able to do anything about it and having been in the building for two minutes already, he needed to get out. His neural net was still searching for other prisoners with no luck. His main hope was to start some sub-routines to access Mizhad’s recent memories to see if he knew where Selena might be.

He transmitted to his team that the suicide nuke had been deactivated and to be ready to cover his retreat. He then proceeded to once again extend the needle into the back of Alicia’s head to access her neural net. It was a testament to her condition that he had just pierced a two-centimeter needle through the back of her skull and she just only slightly stirred. She wouldn’t last much longer at all.

During the two seconds required for data transmission from Alicia, his sub-routine monitoring the nuke reported that the nuke had fully disarmed. At the same instance, the orb darted at Nash and then grew several meters in diameter to surround both Nash and Alicia. A split second later, the supposedly disarmed nuke exploded, destroying on only the base but several nearby mountains as well. It was the largest man-made explosion the world had ever seen.