Surprisingly the vents that I was crawling through were rather clean, despite the fact that there was no air cleaning system active that I knew of at all. However not five minute after starting my crawl through their system I started hearing a humming sound, however this sound I had no idea where in the world it was coming from at all, it was bouncing off of all the metal around me. Thing was, as I continued, I noticed that the sound was actually getting louder, as if it and I were getting closer.
As I came up to a cross point, one that had gone in several directions, I saw the reason for not only the sound, but for why the vents were as clean as they were. Roving cleaning droids, working constantly to make sure that the vents were clean of anything that might clog up the system. Once that was figured out and understood, I brought up my right up and punched up on the gauntlet screen a schematic of the building and where my target location was at, which turned out to be twenty levels below me. The multi-cross section that was in front of me was the most direct route to the level that I needed, however the problem that I faced was the cleaning droids, I had a feeling that they might destroy anything that I left behind in order to get down to that level. So I did the only thing that I knew of, I took the plunge.
Upon dropping into the down vent, sections started rushing at me like crazy, and if it hadn't been for the H.U.D., then I would never have known that I was about to hit the level. Since my hands were behind me, I just fired the grapple lines from the wrists and let them snag on the sides and help to slow my decent as I got closer. I just had to make sure that everything happened fast enough that the lines didn't get cut before I got to the level I was aiming for. The lines snagged and slowed me down fast and got me right to the level, were I slid into and pulled the grapple lines back in. Pulling up the schematic again, I instead overlaid it onto the H.U.D. and put my current position on there, and unlike before with the decent that I had, this time the surrounding areas outside of the vent system were also included so that was I knew exactly where I was at all times.
After crawling for twenty minutes and taking different twists and turns in the vent, I arrived at the location that I was trying to get to, and looked down at the room that I was about to enter. The place was a huge chamber, one that had a central station similar to that of what Alice was in, only the one that was in this one, was in the center of the machine and their mind was directly plugged into the system. I was actually surprised that the one in the center of the unit was encased in a green bubble like spot with wires hooked up to his head and down the spin of his back. This wasn't something that was good in the least, question I had now, was this guy in their willingly or not?
Looking further around the place, I noticed that there were four techs and two security guards in the room. Since the obvious threat was the guards, I was going to have to take them out first, and I knew that I was going to have to move fast. It was right then that I noticed something that I should've seen first, and had just noticed it right before I was about to drop down. They were all wearing that head piece thing that gave them an augmented reality that let them see more than what was really there.
I realized that I had to get their headsets off, which means that I had to shut them down, but I also couldn't do it through an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse), because that would in turn hurt the one that was plugged into the system and running it. So I figured that the only way that I was going to be able to shut them down, was by jamming their headsets.
I searched for the frequencies that the headsets were using, once I found it I jammed it and the men standing there started looking around wondering what in the world happened. I noticed though, that the scientists that were down there was also looking around confused as well and I realized at that what I had blocked covered all of them, which meant that it was that same throughout the planet.
I opened up and the vent and jumped down into the chamber with everyone else and moved, first I took out the guards, just knocking them out so that was they couldn't do anything else to me. Then I went after the scientists that were there, and gathered them up into one location in the room. "Stay put." I told them as I walked over to the center module and looked at the monitor that was connected to it. "I know that you can hear me. I also know that you're plugged into almost every single mind on the planet. I say almost because I know that there are those that are not connected to you, a resistance if you will, fighting you to give the people back their freedoms that they should never have lost in the first place." I stated.
At first there was nothing on the monitor; it was a complete blank screen, then a blinking curser. Then words started to appear. "YES I KNOW OF THOSE THAT RESIST ME, AND THE EFFORT TO BRING ORDER TO THE WORLD."
I looked down and then back to the monitor. "Yes I know and understand that you want to do this, but you're going to have resistance either way. You even tried to bring me into the fold, and I rejected it. When you try and force someone, people are going to reject being forced to do anything, and considering that it was dealing with their minds, yeah they're going to reject you completely." I told him.
"BUT WHY WOULD THEY REJECT ME, I BRING ORDER TO AN ORDERLESS WORLD. I AM THE ONE THAT BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER."
"Right and you're forcing them together, that's where the rejection comes in." I explained. "Where I come from, if you try and force anyone, ANYONE to doing something that they don't want to do for themselves, they're going to resist and reject you. This goes for any world that I've been on or ever will be on."
For a minute there was nothing on the monitor, then something that I didn't think that I would see in talking to him. "HOW DO I END ALL THIS?" He asked.
A single question, something that I knew I would eventually come, what was needed in order to end this war and free the minds that were out there. "Can you be disconnected from this system?" I asked.
"NO"
"Then considering that you're trapped here, just shut down the connection to everyone out there, first send them a message letting them know, give them a countdown to get them ready, and then disconnect the planet all at once, and end all of this." I told him.
Within minutes, everything that I had just told him to do was heading out to every single man, woman and child that was on the planet was bring told, and in every language that was out there. The timer was given five minute for everyone to get ready, this I could see from the camera feeds out there, that this was something that no one had even seen coming in the least.
At the end of the five minutes, I saw on a global scale that the entire network was shutting down all at once, that minds were being freed from whatever world and life that they had known of before. To begin a fresh new life and to work things out from there. Even I knew that there was going to be left over effects from everything that they had gone through, but it was worth it in the end.
I looked over at the guards, and I could see the confusion that was on their faces. "What's going on here, what's happened to the secondary world around us?" He asked.
I walked over to him and looked into his eyes and saw the root of everything that happened. "You were given the warning just now weren't you?" I asked him. He only nodded and just stood there, I really didn't know what to say to him beyond that.
Three hours later I was back where I had started from in that underground area. "It's going to take time, but over all everything that everyone's gone through, the world is going to be coming back from something that it should never have gone through in the first place." I told him.
"Is there anything that I can do?" He asked.
I looked at their leader, and then it came to me. "Yes, take the two that had been hooked up into the system, and take care of them, help them with a life that they should've had in the first place. It had been wrong to plug them into that computer world in the first place, the best thing that you can do is help bring them back into a real world instead of an augmented one that they had created and were fighting over." I told him. "Believe me; they're going to need that help in more ways that you could begin to understand. After all, they've had the entire world inside of their minds for the longest time, and being controlled by someone else that should never have been controlling them in the first place." I finished.
They all said nothing as I got back onto the glider and powered up to leave, and in all honesty I was hoping that I would never come back to this world ever again, I couldn't wipe it from my computer since I knew that if I did that, then at some later point, I would be coming back and that was the last thing that I needed. For now I just left things the way that they were and lifted up and through the sky light that was there. No words further on either side had been needed.
Once I got up to the right height level, I triggered the leap and left…and arrived in the dead of night on a world that I had never thought that I would be coming back to, only I knew that it wasn't the same world that I had left before. "Where am I?" I asked, fearing that I knew the answer only too well.
