Strange World

 

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The Awakening

As I woke up, I saw myself tied to a bed or a sofa in such a way that it felt quite comfortable. Anyone with a brain would look around and try to understand where he is, so looking around, I glimpsed two cameras on each opposing corners to the bed, and a sword suspended to the ceiling, which seemed to be aimed at my head. The ropes I was tied with were also tied to the sword, as if someone wanted me to stay tied to the bed and never leave.

   I started to try to simulate the person responsible for my imprisonment. The walls were painted in rosés pink, a typical rich teen or just another young psychopath woman who has been left out multiple times. The only problem with that theory was just that there wasn't a single stuffed animal in the room. So I switched to another theory: the theory of the bucket head, the light headed dad expecting a baby. Again there was no visible proof. Still there was one last reasonable explanation: a newly abandoned house invaded by a couple of drunks after two straight open bar parties. this one should make of my current situation a prank.

    As I got done with that eureka moment, the door opened with a slow swing. I spotted a red high heel on a spotless, perfect foot. at that moment it felt pretty clear to me: "I was kidnapped by a woman!!" I said to myself with a disappointing tone of voice. But not just any woman, the perfect woman. I started imagining her appearance: a slightly curvy woman, five foot ten, brunette. With long wavy hair, fiery red lips, perfect soft skin, striking honey brown eyes, a precision cut, plastic surgery free nose, seamlessly puffed light pink cheeks.

    After that daydream, I saw that woman. To my great surprise, she was just spot on what I imagined. She was bending down over my chest as I noticed a Hawaiian flower tattoo on her left shoulder. Her lips moved in such a smooth way.as she started talking, an angelic voice flowed around the room:" I see that you have awoken honey. It's already 9:00 AM!? Get your clothes; they're in that suitcase. Let me untie those knots." I stayed still as she untied the ropes with a silky touch." Wait a minute! Who are you? Where am I? Why is there a sword tied above my head? Where are "we" going?", I spurred out into speech. All she answered was: " It seems like your medications have worked, you are 86th street, Chicago USA, I am your wife Lacey Stuart, and your sword was put there because this is actually your questioning room!”, "AAHAAA!! I replied dully. "Yes! She is my wife! "I celebrated silently." Where are we going again? ", " to New Orleans by flight.", " Which airline?", "not by plane silly, by human flight.", " What?? You mean like Superman??", "It seems that your powers are still not visible to you, again those medications got to you good!". It turned out that I am one of only two humans on this planet to have an SDNA system, born with a group of powers, like our cells being stronger than steel, our eyes containing microscopic diamond shards that can concentrate beams of light into a high power laser that can slice the Empire State Building like a hot knife thru butter. This all might seem like a perfect description of superman but we don't have weaknesses. As a plus, we have super speed, teleportation, weather control and much more .This was a summary of all of what Lacey told me. But shockingly, the second SDNA system holder is Lacey. That should explain why she seems just perfect, as if she was... genetically engineered to meet my desires in a woman. "Intriguing." It seems like there are two possibilities, one of them is just that we are engineered clones. Or it just worked like this. One thing wrong with my first theory is that it is impossible nowadays to make human clones. I got up, put on my clothes, ate my breakfast at high speed, and started my flight to New Orleans.

 

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My First Mission

    On my way, I was told that multiple banks were in clash because of their strong competitiveness. One of the bank owners hired mercenaries to attack the two other banks as a way to weaken their reputation and safety. That is where I come in. My job is to first try to be patriotic and if that doesn't work, the action starts.     As any man knows, wives always ask for something on your way. When you got SDNA, bounties become an exaggerated manner. She asked for a Versace handbag from Italy, a couple of croissants from a small bakery in Paris and some labneh from a farm in Mount-Lebanon! "Women!!".

    On my way to New Orleans, I passed by Oklahoma City for a little pass by the Shakespeare Center if I could get a chance to see the the O.K.C.T practice a bit. I was wrong, there were no practices scheduled at noon that day. Well, you got to do what you got to do. On my way back to Louisiana, I seemed to always glimpse the same car on every one of my stops; a red Volvo, or was it an Audi TT; events like this couldn't be just a coincidence, it looked like it was moving to my destination. I was not going to let them go without double checking my theory on their suspicious activity.

    I stealthily approached the vehicle, scanned the interior for an inventory check and came upon two EMP generators able to cause a power outage in a building within ten seconds, 12 AK-56 (a laser shooting version of the AK-47), ski masks with what seemed to smell a sort of coating, which caused camera jams. "I got my proof, time to hi-jack this TT!".

    I opened the hood, took out the battery and a couple of pistons, and wrote a note on a sheet of paper:" Don't you think I'll let you disturb the peace in my country!". I laughed a little as I saw two guys who turned out to be the mercenaries summoned by the "Big Bankers" bank owner named Calvin Cunnington. I watched them fighting and shouting on the phone:

- It's all your fault Ben.

- No it's all your fault James, you were supposed to guard the car while I went to get us a couple of sandwiches!

- You're the one who couldn't stop nagging on the way and demanding to eat!"

    Suddenly, a very low voice shot out of the phone:" Enough already!! You two have failed your mission, the cash you'll ever see is the cash I'll be withdrawing from your accounts in my bank. I guess I'll have to call in the hackers to finish the job. This contact line will be terminated in 3 minutes so don't bother calling on this number anymore." Who knew that Mr. Cunnington had a backup plan. Guess I'll have to go back to Chicago, regroup with Lacey, and construct a plan to stop them hackers."I said to myself hoping that SDNA has a solution for cyber crooks. But before I could even start to fly home, Lacey called me via radio transmission to my ear piece, reminding me to get the stuff she asked for."

- We've got more important things to do. The bank owner Mr. Cunnington is going to use hackers as his backup plan to destroy or weaken the other banks!".

    She stayed silent for a moment then she told me that she is on her way. As always I prefer to stay on the move, but she didn't take long to get here. The only way to get rid of a hacker's virus on a main server is to get a virus infiltrated into the hacker's server, like hack his phone or triangulate his location via cell towers, or even try to decrypt his IP address straight out of the FBI's special access to telecom companies. Well, this might sound a little too advanced, but at least we got a virus infection trail thru a wireless Internet cafe hack in by the same virus attacking the server of the Carter-Smith bank. Amateur hackers always leave this trail behind. Guess Mr. Cunnington has been having some investment lows because the hacker he hired is JK624 aka number 624 on the top world hackers list. As for my level, I'm number 5. Here's the bummer, Lacey's number 1, a girl beat me at computer science.

    Well, that is insignificant, because we need to take into action the return of all the electronic funds to the banks and stop that doofus from winning this war. The plan was: hack the hacker, give back the cash and finally head to Paris, Mont-Lebanon and Italy.my only worry is just that the hacker finishes his job before we could get to him. It hit me, an awesome plan:" We hit their hideout strong and the idiot won't even think about hitting any bank since we will send him to jail. Brilliant isn't it?". I'll have to skip the story of the team hacking the hacker and getting both the hacker and Mr. Cunnington in jail with a life sentence.

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The Rise of the Trident

    Poseidon's trident. In Greek mythology, it is the staff that controls the seas. As it seemed there is a gigantic gang that spawned straight out of Japan and have based their activity on overseas cargos for transportation to black markets all over the U.S.A containing guns, tanks, EMPs, pulsars and other high tech stuff. Basically, millions if not billions of dollars in stolen U.S and Japanese technologies right into the streets where not even the president's security system would be able to spot. After a couple of months of disappearance and off the grid work like building a new house, a house with an underground superhero lair. I was walking to the supermarket, I spotted a dozen of men walking in a certain circular pattern that seemed to show them hiding a man in the centre with a steel box with a trident symbol on it.

    As Lacey was searching in some of the FBI's Database, she got a match to one of the hidden gold list, a list of fifteen gangs with the right to stay hidden and do their work unstopped until one of their deals go against their country. Poseidon's trident was in the top 3. But the only files on them were ship arrivals without inventory checks. As always, my theories had their part in this mission, one of my theories was they are attempting a sale to terrorists for some sort of destruction ray. Another theory is they got some atomic warhead in that steel box, going to be sold to terrorists. Either way, there are terrorists on the line. "Back to work!!" said Lacey.

- How about you go on the ground this time, try to infiltrate their gang, since you are a woman, it will be easier for you to get accepted."

- Wow! You seem to always have strong plans!"

- Thank you! I try. Infiltrate, spy and call me in for the breakdown."

- Got it!"

- Be careful, these are outlaws, don't go as sweetie pants, go as a hard-head, a woman with a man's attitude!"

- Okay, okay, don't worry. I'll get my hands greasy under the hood."

- Now that we have got a plan, we need to practice our breakdown skills, by that I mean...fighting!!" Every martial art has a style. The crane, silky moves; the eagle, strong and agile moves; the mantis, the basic power fistfight; the tiger, explosive power punches with a little push kicking. For each style, there is a weakness. For example, mantis style is beaten by the crane style, which is beaten by the tiger style, which is beaten by the eagle style sometimes.

For the remainder of the mission, the storyline needs a switch of characters, from Ethan to Lacey.

    Okay, time to start the acting job. Depending on Ethan's plan, I have to go to the Umac Express bay with a broken down vehicle out of a container from their newest arriving cargo ship, fix it, then use the car as a leverage to enter the gang as their mechanic. The only problem was that they would think that I was a thief and kill me. But it all went fine. As I was fixing the car's transmission in, one of the gangsters came close and said:" Nice work, wanna join us?"

- Uhhmmmm...it seems like you need a good mechanic, so OK."

- Well then, let's go! I'm Hung Chu, Senior HR of"

- Poseidon's Trident."

- How did you know?"

- The logo on your jacket doofus"

As he was looking down, he whispered:" Oh yeah!"

    I finally got to meet with their "chairman" Dr Yung Chu, retired chemical engineer. I was offered a full security level 5 clearance, and a cool hoodie with their logo on it," Yey!"

Back to Ethan

- Wow! That is impressive! But it seems like a trap. No gigantic gang would want to give anyone they just saw fix up a car a big promotion to head mechanic. It just isn't logical for it to happen on your day. I'm sorry."

    So for that, we had to figure out a quick plan to finalize my research on their sources and their different trajectories used by them. My only worry was that they could be preparing a plan to trap us both as we try to infiltrate their HQ. The gangsters have one weakness, it's their members. If one of the members is a rotten mole, they break down from the roots and fail to come back. Nevertheless, Japanese gangs are very meticulous with gang integrity and fidelity of its members, so I doubt that they haven't placed a tracker on her..." Wait a minute! Oh, snap! The jacket! The tracker might be on the jacket's logo. See, I told you!"

- Again, you were right on that. Can you jam the signal or invert it to figure out where they're spying on us from."

- Of course I can, so let's start with signal jamming, (tick…tick…tick…tick) Done! Now that the signal inversion complete, it looks like our spies are in a basement on the corner of...our...street!?"

    I was finishing my sentence when a sudden burst of sounds came into the room...........(BOOOOOOM) the back wall blows up into a thousand pieces with stone and wood shards flying out in all direction. The incredibly powerful shockwave knocked both of us into the next wall. The flames spewed out and started burning the monitors and keyboards, sending out somehow toxic fumes into the room that was already trashed. Out of all the fog, five big silhouettes started getting shaped. It seemed to me that Poseidon's Trident has figured out about us. As I was standing up I caught a glimpse of the assaulters and got smacked in the back of the head with a baseball bat that knocked me out.

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The Unexpected Turn of Events

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