Edesse 1. Alagan

10 - Hacking C5 Files

Quick! The countdown had begun. In five minutes, his daily time quota would be fully consumed. Incorrigible, Alagan had wanted to jump back into the matrix. With all the ambivalence that characterized him, he felt a simultaneous and contradictory desire to flirt with death and to move away from it as quickly as possible. He loved to search the archives of the Government Network for information about his birth, to the point of forgetting the time. The dangers of the virtual world, both so real and so intangible, did not frighten him. Gifted in computer science, he mastered the code of a good part of the Network. He spent so many hours there, all his daily quota, actually. Four minutes. Time to discover another file on Alagan Tyles and find once again the same observations. Grandson of Madeline Tyles, deceased father and mother. Last year school student. Two minutes.

He hacked into the file to access his psychological profile: no birth certificate, unsurprising student, excellent in technology, application for admission to the bloodhound unit in progress. Six seconds. Initiating emergency repatriation. Three seconds. Two. One. He felt violently sucked in, as if caught up in death. Though he knew this time again he would laugh at it. Dazed and tired, he reopened his eyelids, recognized his flat, his bed. He lay there for a few minutes to recover from his little getaway. The beep of his holographer woke him up with a new message: "We regret to inform you that your application to the C5 bloodhound unit has been declined". Grieved, he put on his jogging outfit and left slamming the door.

On the landing, he looked with disgust at the excessive urban planning that surrounded him. Baiyin, its infinite towers, its grey sky, its charred trees. A sanitized megalopolis, criss-crossed by patrols in search of outlaws. A clean city,where emotions, undeniable signatures of souls in distress, wandered in the remains of a distant past. A threatening, silent and icy city, surrounded by boundaries not to be exceeded. A wave of sadness overtook him as he walked past the right door. His other neighbor, Mrs de Fonsegrives, a friend of Mamily, had disappeared two weeks earlier. He  wondered if it was  since this event that Mamily became ill.

Abductions were common. According to the official channel, the Radical Terrorist Organization kidnapped innocent victims for the sole purpose of overwhelming the state. It happened right next door and he hadn't seen anything. For a few moments, a deep feeling of anger mixed with injustice and powerlessness invaded him. If not for Mamily, Nam and Cassiopeia, his existence would have seemed futile to him. If not a bloodhound, what would be become? An official in charge of calculating allowances? He sighed for a long time, resumed his breath, then advanced on his misty dock where a "liftor" was waiting for him. The mini shuttle promptly dropped him off at the bottom of the 120 floors.

 Everywhere huge buildings darkened the streets to form a dull and austere ensemble. Curiously, however, in this hideous city, there were still some trees, with trunks and blackened leaves, as if burned. Carriers passed through fast and silent arteries. In an ocean of heads, they would drop off a businessman in a hurry for his appointment. Only the sound from the crowd's feet could be heard - barely louder than an army of ants returning to their nest. In this succession of tense faces like undertakers in a funeral procession, Alagan started to run in small strides.

As he lengthened his pace, his heartbeat sped up. He focused on his breathing - inhaling - exhaling - inhaling - exhaling slowly, the full breath of the lungs. The rhythm of his heart slowed down and he found his cruising speed.

He took an alley on the right - not very busy at this time of day. His eyes swept through the entrances of the buildings and the shop windows in the discreet lapping of a few drops of rain. Sometimes a stealthy shadow behind a fogged window made it possible to guess a hidden-from-view occupant.

An advertising poster in front of a pharmacy then draw his attention. The perfect body of a naked supermodel with hypnotic grey irises captured the eyes of every pedestrian, man or woman, in search of seduction. "Coleade, for a sublime body and a beautiful mind" was on display at the top of the sign. He continued his journey, dreaming. Then, Kassandra's image came to his mind. Troubled, he forgot to breathe out. He pulled himself together, chasing the student away from his thoughts and continued jogging. He reached a crossroads, then slipped into the left fork. The very short street led to a large populated avenue. His breathing accelerated, as did his pace. In a macabre silence, he passed  silhouettes in dark suits.Sinister

 individuals walked with a brisk step and rearranged like free electrons within a molecular body. The pale complexion, the energetic pace, every hurried passer-by he met certainly had an urgent objective to fulfill.

He accidentally brushed against one of them, and offered an apology, under the murderous gaze of his victim who, now an executioner, did not utter a word. "No, but what an idiot ! Stay home if you can't run! "He turned around. The man had already gone his way.

Alagan resumed his journey by massaging his temples to chase away the sound of the tam-tam pounding his skull. Migraine.

A male voice resounded: "Mr. Irwick's abduction must be anticipated, he is beginning to show signs of failure." He stopped abruptly and turned his head to identify who had spoken. He stared at the crowd, looked suspiciously at the last person he had just met. No way to know. "abduction must be anticipated ? "he repeated inwardly. "All these kidnappings..." He thought. "And Mamily, sick and worried..." On second thought, yes, it made sense. She was afraid of being abducted.

He jogged again, confused, and heard talking another time. A woman's voice: "I'm pregnant, but what should I do? The C5 will never allow me to keep him !"

He stopped again, inspected each of the female faces he had just met. The government of the Five Continents? Were they really the ones responsible for these kidnappings or were they  the terrorists of the TOR? His inward voices suddenly formed a such dense noise that his migraine intensified.He could not bear the daylight, though largely veiled. He closed his eyelids to drive away the pain.He remained so for a few moments, only hearing beats.

He slowly resumed his journey, inhaled deeply to calm himself. The sound choked. The eyes wide open again, he stood in a deserted parking lot. No living souls around. With a confused, paranoid mind, he opted for the underground where the dim light would less hurt. His init pricked him. Probably because of the sweating, he thought. His hand grazed the diamond and came out slightly reddened. Rising up the collar of his jacket, he took the path back to his building, still at a brisk pace. On the wrist of his tight Retext garment, the rhythm of his heartbeat was displayed. A little high. Speed : slower than usual. He felt motivated to get back home quickly. Walking would relieve him, but would only make the return time longer. In addition, he couldn't see much in the tunnel. Fortunately his Retext jersey was sufficient to light the road in front of him. Smart textiles were really a gift from heaven. Inside his init, Shella's voice guided him through the meanders of Baiyin Underground's passages. Finally there, he stopped and botched his stretching exercises. The "liftor" arrived and climbed him up to his high floor platform. He kept exhaling, while walking in the long corridor. Once in front of his house, he knocked on Mamily's door.

The metium opening automatically recognized his hand on the handle. Hiding the right side of his neck, he barely passed his head through the gap:

- Alagan, is it you? Mamily threw from the back of her room.

- Yes, I don't come in. I'm dripping with sweat. 'just wanted to make sure you were okay.

- Why don't you come and kiss me? You're not sick, are you? She could not hear very well obviously.

- No, no, just in a hurry, Mamily! he shouted.

He didn't want to worry her unnecessarily. He knew she'd make a big deal out of it. He had never seen an init bleed before.

Back home, Shella offered him a "cauterizing" dressing to stop the bleeding. In a small moan, Alagan placed the synthetic square on his wound. A slight smoke escaped, emitting a burning smell. The capsule had worked. The blood had stopped flowing.

The young man commissioned Shella to research the Network to see if there had been any precedents for blood flow to the init. He then went to the shower. A few shoots of proteins enriched salad later, the interpreter informed him of its unsuccessful results. At three o'clock, two carriers arrived simultaneously at the landing stage. The doorbell rang.

- Open, Shella !

[ouch... this one was so difficult to translate !...Please tell me how I am doing... If this is not readable, I may stop.  Pleease... feel free to indicate sentences that go wrong..]