After a few more weeks at the hospital, Samuel was finally allowed to go home while the next iteration of the Magnus Doom was been built. His dad welcomed him as always.
"Welcome home, son"
Samuel just went into the house, a few hours later after a brief call; a vehicle stopped in front of the Terrence household. It was an old model, a classic analogical combustion engine van, made in Germany, the thing was at least seventy years old, the rumbling sound of the engine made the kids around the block stare at it. The door of the Terrence household opened.
"Hello Gio"
"Good to see you again, Williams"
"So, what are you guys planning?"
"Nothing much, we probably just gonna talk about your father. Share stories from the battlefield, veterans stuff"
Williams seemed interested.
"I am sorry, but some stories are military secrets... you know how it is, we can't talk with civilians around"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, just don't do anything stupid"
"Come on, I am older than you"
"Doesn't make you less reckless"
Samuel came down from his room and interrupted the conversation; he bid farewell to his dad and accompanied Gio inside the vehicle. As soon as they moved away from his father; Samuel started making questions.
"So, what is this secret you and my grandfather had?"
"Not here, not yet" answered Gio as he drove.
After a moment of silence, Samuel decided to try talk about something else; the old vehicle had no entertainment, not even a radio; there was nothing electronic on it.
"How are things going with the trial stuff?" Asked Samuel.
"Is all over, no one gives a shit about us anymore. The military has made sure to block all our chances to get good stuff though"
"I see; well, you guys really took a lot of equipment. I know you all did it with good intention and that saved my life, but still... anyway, thanks"
"Don't mention it kid. Although I am pissed that Omaley dumb fuck got away scotch free, he was demoted and forcefully retired as a major. I think is not enough, fucker should have been court martialed."
"Yeah, I heard from captain Virna... By the way, where the hell are we going?" Asked Samuel as they drove out of the city.
"We will be there soon, don't worry"
Fifteen long and boring minutes later Gio parked the vehicle near a scrap yard.
"Here we are"
They got out and went into the disorganized maze of rusting metal. A dog started barking; all kind of metal things and parts were laying around: motor bikes, cars, planes, tanks, even old refrigerators.
"Shouldn't all this be recycled and re-purposed?" asked Samuel.
"Yeah, but this place is private, so all this junk is also private. Government has been trying to closure this place for years, but no cigar. Come I want you to meet someone"
Gio kept walking ignoring the dog. He and Samuel approached a metal door from an old building that used to be white, now most of it seemed to have acquired a rusty reddish color. Gio knocked on the door. Another old man in his seventies opened. He was quite burly for an old man, his forearms had more muscle than all of Samuel's body combined; he was dressed in an old albornoz that even had a few holes on it; his white hair was turning scarce and the white unkempt beard had some fresh sauce stains. He looked at Gio squinting his blue eyes.
"I was eating Gio, you always show up at the wrong time"
The man then looked at Samuel and put on his glasses.
"Oh, you are Magnus kid. Gio, why the hell you didn't tell me you will bring him today?"
"Lets just get inside Raphael, you don't have to be so dramatic and paranoid about everything" said Gio as he pushed the old man to the side and went inside the room. The place was dim lit, the air felt a bit humid and stagnant, there was rust dust all over the place
"Well, that saved me from being accused of being a thief by those creeps from the army"
"Not like it mattered in the end" Gio refuted.
"Yeah, because the kid and Broflosky saved your dumb asses"
Raphael closed the door. Samuel squinted as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the even darker room.
"Sam, this is Raphael. He was also part of the team, after you grandfather retired he went all paranoid and conspiratorial"
"It ain't a conspiration theory if it is the truth. Give me any terminal, phone, or any electronic device on you" asked Raphael.
Samuel looked at him raising one eyebrow.
"I am a pilot, I am full of electronic devices"
"Don't be a smart ass kid, you know what I mean" said Raphael while extending his hand out.
"Just give them to him" recommended Gio while giving Raphael and old mobile device he had on his wrist.
Samuel took of the ear pieces from the back of his ear and gave it to Raphael, who then enclosed them in a metal box that rested over a drawer.
"Old style lead, nothing beats the classic when it comes to isolating electronic devices. Help me here Gio" Raphael moved away from the lead box.
The two men pushed the heavy table in the middle of the room and then lifted the carpet; a trapdoor was underneath; Raphael opened it and went down, followed by Gio.
"Come" called Gio.
Samuel followed the two men, the stairs opened to a dark room of just five meter square, right after he got in, Raphael closed the door and the already scarce light disappeared. Part of the room became illuminated as Raphael turned on a ultraviolet black light; when Samuel looked at him, the man was kneeling on the wall to the left. There was a fluorescent square at the bottom of the wall near the door that just closed. Raphael pushed into it, there were some noises and the wall to the right retracted opening an fluorescent passage.
"Get in, and walk ahead" Raphael invited them into the corridor that just opened, it had room for just one person at the time.
Gio went in first, Samuel doubted.
"Don't worry kid, this is a secret your grandfather and all the team have been keeping with our lives"
Samuel followed Gio, they walked ahead, Gio stopped and Samuel bumped into his back after walking about five meters.
"What is wrong?" asked Samuel.
"Road is over" answered Gio.
They turned around, Raphael was doing something in the wall. He turned the black light off. A few seconds later the wall at the right moved again opening another passage, there was some light at the end of it. They walked into a dimly lit room. There was a metal door on the wall, embedded into it there was a old style small keyboard with all the keys unmarked, two handlebars, and a valve lock. Unexpectedly Raphael just pulled one of the handlebars and opened the door.
"Don't touch the keys, the valve or the other handlebar, you will blow up if you do" he explained as he smiled.
They passed through the door; there was an elevator, the creaking thing took them down for a while.
"Welcome to one of our secret bases kid. Probably one of the few place in this world that is safe from that damned gossiping AI" said Gio opening his arms.
"Sit on the chair"
Raphael signaled to a weird chair inside a thin metal cage. Samuel got into the cage and sat while Gio and Raphael pushed some buttons and some electrical systems came on-line. Samuel face showed some discomfort.
"What are you guys doing?" Samuel asked confused.
"You will know in a minute" answered Gio.
Raphael brought an old monitor and introduced what seemed like a very old cassette into a slot, the screen came to life as the face of Magnus appeared.
"Hello Sammy. If you are seeing this, it means we didn't make it; me and my team are probably dead"
There was a moment of silence.
"Remember when I told you that I felt like I wasted my life by being a pilot and I was sorry you followed the same path? There was a reason for that."
The screen changed showing the face of a young brown skinned man, with straight short hair, brown eyes and a lab coat.
"This man name is Rajiv Patil, more than forty years ago he was a member of the team of engineers and technicians that kept MARTA systems running; they did debugging, corrected errors and were in charge of maintenance. Three year after the beginning of the Tenctopus invasion, Rajiv disappeared without a trace. All information about him was lost. We didn't new his importance until two years ago when Raphael got his hand on a piece of old equipment. It was a relic from back in the day, an old terminal; after tinkering with it, Raphael found out it belonged to Rajiv. It was a personal terminal disconnected from all networks, it only contained personal information. Our friend Rajiv seemed to have a morbid hobby, he loved to dig into tragedies and weird gruesome accidents"
The screen changed again, this time it showed the face of two white men in their thirties.
"This two men: Ernesto Villalva Rios and Miguel del Duero Escoba, were a pair of marine biologist from Spain. They were exploring the deep sea in the Atlantic ocean, far away from Spanish coast. It seems like they made a great discovery; however after going back to Spain, they died in a horrible accident. The self driving car they took malfunctioned and incinerated them to death"
The screen changed again showing a car in flames while the two biologist screamed.
"Rajiv found the accident too weird, the incidents that lead to the tragedy were too weird, that picked his curiosity; he became obsessed and started investigating about it. He found way too many errors in the self driving car AI systems that should not be possible; also a lot of personal information about the two men was deleted from their on line profiles. Then in another series of weird accidents; many home appliances malfunctioned causing minor damage to their apartments even after their deaths. In some cases this accident destroyed vital information about them. However one of them used to take some notes of their work the old fashioned way; notebooks. After looking around Rajiv managed to get some of that material from the house of one of their relatives who was not too fond of technology and smart homes"
The screen changed again showing drawings and notes from the biologist.
"This two men found a new life form in the deep of the oceans, some kind of octopus that somehow managed to incorporate minerals and inorganic elements into their bodies. Their nervous systems was compatible with some metals and some forms of electronic signals. Raphael findings are incomplete, but from studying Rajiv private investigation we managed to put the puzzle together, we confirmed that this octopus are the origins of our actual enemy"
The Screen changed once again. This time showing different vehicles.
"We borrowed a lot of equipment from the military in the last few years, was not too hard. We knew where everything was and how to get it. So, every time they were about to destroy some of the outdated equipment; we just took it off their hands. Our team of technicians fabricated this vehicles.
The vehicles were a bunch of home made submarines made out of repurposed military equipment and exoskeletons parts.
"We managed to dive into the oceans and do some investigations, but we paid a price for our findings. The members of our team that became to obvious started having weird accidents. We found out that the AI is involved in this mess"
Samuel eyes opened in surprise. The screen changed again and showed Magnus face once more, there were tears on his eyes.
"As I am recording this, there is a huge battle about to happen. We know there will be a massive attack and I hope you don't get involved in it. Samuel, we are about to die; although those machines we build to explore the oceans are not as stressful as a full exoskeleton, it still proved too much for us... we are just too old; we don't have much left on us, I am sorry son. I wish I didn't have to dump all of this on you, but I am too weak to do it myself. Gio, Raphael and the rest of the team will show you where our real enemy is hiding. However, if you don't want to do it, if you just want to stop being a pilot and live the rest of your life away from all this crap; I want you to know, I understand... actually I hope you walk away, because there is probably no way of coming back alive from that place. Good luck Samuel; I want you to know that I love you and I am proud of you, always been"
The screen changed to static. Samuel stayed silent for a moment, when he tried to move Raphael stopped him.
"Don't move"
"What is wrong?" Asked Samuel.
"This chair and that cage is something we designed; you are inside a rustic jamming device, we also are interfering with your implants. We can't risk that damned AI reading you like a book, there are some features in your implants that are basically spying devices; that thing wanted to infiltrate the army and it did. Your implants have more back doors than actual piloting functions; as soon as you connect with any terminal that damned thing can check on your most recent information. So, stay there and don't move."
"So, I am supposed to stay here for how long?"
"Well, I can fry the parts of the implants that act as malware, but..."
"But what?"
"There is two problems: one, it hurts like hell"
"I am a pilot, I been through hell every time I get into a Exoskeleton"
"Fair enough. The other problem is once we do it, your gonna have a lot of trouble explaining the army how it happened. I don't think you can go back to be a pilot, damn AI thing might just try to kill you"
Samuel seemed pensive for a while.
"You know what. If the AI is behind all of this; I think MARTA has been trying to kill me all this time. I mean come on; I have been in battles that are impossible to survive, weird shit happens around me all the time. Two teams wiped out in insane battles and it happens my grandfather and his team were trying to uncover a conspiracy? I don't believe in that kind of coincidences"
"Makes sense, but lets face it; if that thing really wanted to kill you she would have done it long ago. Something accidentally goes wrong and you take an electric shower."
"Maybe, I will ask the damned thing my self one day"
Samuel looked at Raphael straight to the eyes with determination.
"Do it"
"I told you the kid had guts. I will call the others" Gio smiled and then walked out the room.
A few hours later the room was crowded with Magnus former partners; they were carrying equipment, cables and what not from other locations. Soon Samuel was strapped to the chair, all parts of his body known to have implants were covered by some circular metal contraption. Two thick needles were connected to his veins.
"A3 on"
"Confirmed A3"
"C24 on"
"Confirmed C24"
Samuel could hear the men doing their stuff, he had no idea what was going on.
"Ready kid?" Asked Giovanni.
"Sure, lets go"
"This is gonna hurt and we don't have much to work with, like when they installed and activated the implants we need you awake and alert, so..."
"I know Gio, don't worry, I can take it"
"We are ready" informed Raphael.
"Lets do it then" Samuel confirmed.
Gio put a piece of rubber into Samuel mouth for him to bite.
"Starting in three, two, one, go!"
After Raphael finished counting, Samuel felt warm on his extremities and head, then the pain started. Samuel bite into the rubber piece in his mouth until he couldn't take it anymore. He screamed, the rubber fell down from his mouth as his eyes filled with tears, his skin covered in sweat, his muscles contracted and he turned pale as the dead.
"He is about to pass out, give him a shot" warned Gio.
One of the men monitoring Samuel, injected something into the intravenous infusion. Samuel woke up and started screaming again.
"Please, stop! Just stop!" screamed Samuel, but no one listened to his pledge.
Each time Samuel was about to pass out, they put some stimulant into his veins. This process lasted for an hour. Finally it was over and Samuel lost consciousness.