"Mr Mirage, you need to make a choice!"
A cold, harsh voice landed heavily in the small room. It echoed against the bare walls.
Sitting on one side of a metallic table was a youth called John Mirage. He couldn't have been more than seventeen, with a mess of jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes. He was a talented hacker.
He was in prison for hacking very deep government secrets, facing a trial of life imprisonment or even death.
In front of him sat the man whom John knew as Mark, an agent for a highly classified, off-the-books branch of the government. And he was here to finalise a deal with John to set him free.
Between the two was a metallic table, with a tray and two syringes on it. One was filled with green and the other with blue drugs.
It was Mark's way to mock John, as the blue syringe had a revolutionary drug, rumoured to unlock humans' potential, and the green syringe was the infamous lethal shot.
Aside from the table and the two men, the room was strikingly barren except for a nurse. She stood like a silent statue in the corner, her presence an unsettling addition to such a place.
"You've spent years playing the justice vigilante out there. You hacked into every deep, dark secret you could find. I'd bet my career you angered the wrong people, Mr Mirage."
Mark pulled out a small pile of legal documents and fanned them out next to the tray. He clicked a fancy-looking pen and laid it on top of the papers.
"The good news is there is a way out for you… A signature is all we need, then take the blue shot, and you'll walk out of here a free man. You will live your life as a new man, reborn. Refuse, and I'll leave, never come back, and you'll end up getting the lethal shot at the end of your trial. You won't find a better offer than this in this lifetime, Mr Mirage."
"You win!" John finally snapped, his voice cracking with a mixture of resentment and resignation. John had already lost count of how many times Mark came to persuade him. Yet today was different; it was the eve of his final trial. "I'll sign this contract, and I'll take your useless shot."
As John leaned forward, his chains rattling with a harsh, metallic clatter, he reached for the pen. At the same time, Mark signalled to the nurse.
"Ouch! What the hell is that?!"
Just as John's pen touched the signature line, a sharp prick jabbed into the pad of his thumb. He hissed, jerking his hand back, but it was too late. A bead of crimson blood blossomed on his skin, dripping onto the white paper and smearing across the contract.
"Oopsie," Mark said, though his voice lacked even a hint of genuine surprise. He leaned over, peering at the bloodstain with interest. "I must have forgotten to remove the pin that held those pages together... My bad, Mr Mirage. Truly."
John stared at the man, his eyes narrowing. He didn't buy the "accident" for a single second. But the blood was already on the papers, and the ink was drying next to it. He shoved the stained documents across the table toward Mark with a look of pure loathing.
"It's done," John growled. "Now set me free."
"Not quite soon," Mark said, his fingers closing around the contract as if it were the most precious treasure in the world. "You take the shot. Then, and only then, you are free."
As the nurse leaned over him, her tight blue uniform straining against her frame, John felt a strange sense of vertigo. She was close, close enough for him to smell the scent of something nice, to take a glimpse of something nicer.
"Done," she said softly. She applied a small adhesive bandage to the injection site. "I'll be heading back now."
She turned, picking up the tray, including the unused green syringe, and exited the room without a backward glance. The heavy door clicked shut, leaving John and Mark alone once more.
"I feel... a bit dizzy."
"It must be the drug starting its work," Mark said, his voice entirely devoid of concern. "To be honest with you, Mr Mirage, I find the human species to be a wonder. So much potential, and yet, so much arrogance."
Mark reached up and slowly removed his sunglasses. John's breath choked in his throat. Mark's eyes weren't normal. Behind the pupils, there was a faint flickering of red light, tiny, glowing dots that looked like micro-circuitry embedded directly into the retina.
"What is that? What are you?" John tried to stand, but his legs felt like lead. The dizziness intensified, turning into a roar in his ears.
"You see, Mr Mirage, I told you a little lie," Mark whispered. "I don't work for your pathetic government."
The next instant, he snapped a finger, and out of nowhere, metallic rope appeared and bound John firmly to his seat. A piece of gauge appeared to shut John's mouth.
"I'm not a man, John. I am a program, sent from a future you can't possibly comprehend. I don't work alone; I work with a few human leaders in the future called Paragons. And I have a single purpose…"
Mark picked up the blood-stained contract, flicking the edges of the paper as if he were reading a lighthearted novel rather than a contract.
"You see, John, the contract you just signed isn't a normal legal document. I know you read it from first to end many times, but there are hidden clauses that no one can spot, not even a veteran lawyer.
It is a deed of sale. It sells your very existence to the machines of the future; your physical body, your identity, and even the intangible essence you call a soul..."
Mark kept blabbering about lots of different stuff, gloating about many things that normally John would take as crazy man's gabberish if not for his current situation, if not for what he saw in Mark.
Mark spoke about a futuristic world, where Earth turned into a wasteland thanks to repetitive nuclear wars and lots of stupid human actions. Eventually, humans couldn't live on Earth, so they left it for machines to handle the mess humans caused.
As for humans, they moved inside a massive VR game, where they lived happily and peacefully in a VR environment, waiting for machines to do the cleaning. There was a lot of talk about things John didn't grasp, like Paragons, like access rights to the game, and fake admin codes the machines gave to humans.
The more Mark talked, the more insane he looked, the more terrified John became.
"... My mission here is simple: I facilitate the signature, I witness your expiration, I harvest your soul, and I return to my time with your soul. That miraculous drug in the blue syringe? It's a lethal drug that leaves zero traces. Without immediate hospital intervention, you'll be dead in less than ten minutes."
John's heart hammered against his chest like a trapped bird. Every instinct in his body screamed for him to fight, to flee, to scream, but he was failing on every front. The drug was a tide, pulling his strength out to sea.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
The heavy door burst open. A prison guard, suspicious of the prolonged and unusual length of the meeting, stood in the doorway. His eyes widened as they took in the scene: the prisoner gagged and bound in shimmering wire, and the government agent was the one who did all that.
Mark's reaction was instantaneous. He lunged for his black bag, his hand disappearing inside for what could only be a weapon. The guard didn't hesitate.
BOOM!
The roar of a shotgun filled the room, the muzzle flash momentarily blinding. A hail of buckshot tore through the air, catching Mark square in the chest.
The world was dimming for John. The light was retreating, replaced by an absolute, suffocating darkness. As the guard fought to free him, John's fading vision locked onto a single object on the floor: the contract.
The one that had felled Mark had also shredded the papers. The contract was a tattered mess. Mark's fingers still twitched near the ruined document, the red lights in his eyes flickering, dimming, and finally going out.
Thud!
The wires gave way, and John's body slammed forward, hitting the floor like a dead weight. He couldn't feel the guard's hands on him or hear the shouting in the hallway. The last image burned into his retinas was Mark's cold, dead eyes and face.
Then, the silence overran the entire world.
-
[Initiate Mark Program
Warning! Warning! Warning!
Unknown error detected!
Unk…
….]
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[Ding! Congratulations! New system created... The Hacker System!]
[Ding! You have gained: Hacker Mind (Passive Ability) - Spoofing (Passive Ability) - Shell (Active Ability) - Frame Recognition (Active Ability)!]
[Ding! Welcome to the future, John Mirage. Welcome to Athanasia.]
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