Oh shit. Oh shit. Okay. Lots of stuff just happened, and I was completely, totally, utterly wrong about Rokos and just about everything. After I closed out the chatbox with Rokos, I posted the last update (enormous mistake, but I’ll get to all that in a bit), flipped off the webcam to let whoever was on the other end know how I felt, taped it over, and closed the browser. Also an enormous mistake, as it turns out. Because if they didn’t already know where I was, it took them all of ten minutes to figure it out. I heard screeching tires pulling into my driveway, and when I looked down from my window, there were black SUVs and cadillacs pulling up to the house. And a whole lot of armed men rushing to the ground floor entry points.
“Oh fuck. Oh, no no no no no!”
BAM BAM BAM
“Mr. Jenkins! We need you to come with us immediately.”
I stayed silent, hoping they'd just leave. It was a long shot, I knew, but I wasn’t exactly well versed in this… stuff.
BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM
“Mr. Jenkins! We’re not going to repeat ourselves. You’re in danger and we’re here to take you into protective custody.”
Fuck it.
“Go to hell! I didn’t do anything wrong and I’m not going anywhere with you!”
I heard a scuffle outside the door. Then shattering glass. And footsteps. Somehow I managed to steady myself enough to grab my golf club from the closet and bring it to my shoulder. As soon as I did, my bedroom doorknob turned and snagged on the lock. Then, with a single hit, the butt of a rifle smashed through the upper half of the left panel and splintered it open.
“Come on, you bastards! Come and get me!”
I’m sure the nervous, prepubescent squeaks in my voice hindered the delivery, but they got the message just fine. And they didn’t like it.
“You hear me?! I’m not even the guy you want, all I did was post some shit I don’t even understand to redditititititititititaggaguuuuaaaaauuugh!”
If you’ve never been hit in the neck with a 50,000 volt taser, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it. But from what’s now personal experience I can testify that A), they work, and B) - they hurt like a motherfucker. Within seconds of my hitting the floor one of the masked goons burst into my room, knocked the club from my grip, planted a knee on my chest and shoved the barrel of his submachine gun into my jaw below the lip. Behind him walked a few more armored freaks and then one man in an immaculate three piece suit who, after snapping on a pair of latex gloves, flicked on my monitor and reopened the TOR browser. Another, similarly dressed man entered behind him.
“This the guy?”
“This is the guy. He knows more than we thought, too.”
“How do you figure?”
“Look.”
The man leaned into the monitor and pursed his lips. Then he turned to me.
“Chattin’ with ol’ Rokos, are we? I’ll bet Vexx would like a word with you.” He nodded slightly to the guards and they pulled me to my feet and marched me out the front door and into one of the waiting Cadillacs, kicking and screaming.
They slammed the door behind me, and before I could even think, the suited man in the front passenger seat turned to me and extended his gloved palm. In it was a small glass syringe - and in that a tiny little worm, resting its head against the millimeter thick wall of its cage.
“You know what this is?”
“N-no.”
“Its a shovelspade worm. They like to feed on things. Living things, in particular, although they ain’t too picky if we keep ‘em nice and hungry.”
My heart pounded exactly once.
“Luckily for you, ol’ Ruby here’s dormant.” He flicked the glass, and the worm stayed still. “But you see that little collar on her?”
I looked closely.
“Y-yeah. Yeah, I s-see it.”
“And you see this little button here?” He held up a small little remote device in his other hand. I nodded.
“If I press this, Ruby here’ll wake up. And she’ll be lookin’ for some breakfast.”
The guard who’d gotten into the seat next to me grabbed me without warning, pulled my shirt collar down and exposed the thick of my neck. I screamed and thrashed, but the man was easily twice as strong as I was and had little trouble restraining me as the suited man jammed the syringe into my lower neck. I howled and grabbed at the area, but rough hands held mine down. The suited man then spoke loudly over my screams.
“You try anything - you speak without permission, you try to run or call out for help - and I will press this button here and you’ll have mere fucking minutes before Ruby chews her way through your spine or into your chest cavity or into your fucking brain and kills you dead!! You understand me?!”
I nodded and cried.
“Let me hear it!”
“I understand!!”
“That’s more like it.” He nodded to the guard, who slapped a small mask over my mouth and nose. My eyes had only just begun to widen when the gas it emitted knocked me out cold.
CLACK!
The sound of a blindingly bright light flicking on woke me out of my sleep with a start. I looked around. White room. Empty, except for a table, the overhead light, and the chair I was bound to. I was alone.
I rubbed the sore injection site on my neck, and the events of what I assumed to be earlier that day came back to me. Suddenly, my chair swiveled to face the empty white wall to my left.
A screen, taking up the entirety of the wall from corner to corner, flickered into life, and the overhead light went out above me. The image on the screen was dark. I saw the silhouette of what appeared to be a man in a chair, but he was only dimly backlit and shadow shrouded his face.
“Jason Jenkins.” said the man. “I’d like to personally apologize for the rough manner in which you were brought here. Can I do anything to make you more comfortable?”
“Who the hell are you?”
“My apologies. My name is Vexx.”
“Okay, “Vexx.” And why am I here?”
“For your protection, of course.”
“My protection?! One of your goons shoved a fucking parasite worm into my neck!”
“And again, you have my sincerest apologies, Jason. Truly.”
“Okay? So can you get it out of me?”
He nodded, and a hose burst out of the chair, latched onto my neck and sucked the worm straight out, along with at least a cup of blood and tissue.
“Auuuugggaghhh!!! What the fucking hell?!”
“The pain will subside in time, Mr. Jenkins. Understand that the removal of cooperation insurance devices is a violation of our protocol. But I’ve made an exception for you.”
I rubbed my neck and grimaced.
“Yeah? And what makes me so special?”
“Because MIRAGE needs you, Jason.”
My eyes went wide.
“Ah - I see you've heard a thing or two about us, haven't you?"
“I, uh - no. No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You can trust me, Jason. I promise. I’ve already been provided with a printed transcript of the conversation you had with Rokos. And I know he’s made a threat against your life. And like I said - I’ve had you brought here for your protection. But you need to let me help you.”
“Are you helping me? Or am I helping you?”
“A bit of both, to be honest. By now you’re more familiar than almost anyone on earth about the Program.”
“The ‘Program?’ You mean ADINN?”
“Yes. Exactly!”
“Yeah, I know about it. And I know its extremely dangerous. Like, existentially dangerous.”
“Ah. I see the Basilisk and his cat’s paw have had their way with your mind. Would you mind if I shared with you what I believe about the Program?”
“Uh, okay. I guess not.”
“The Program - ADINN - is not an existential threat, Jason. It is a remarkable feat of engineering - doubtlessly the single most impressive and potentially important accomplishment in the history of mankind.”
“And what if it decides it wants to do away with humanity? What then?”
“What makes you think it will wish that upon us? It was humanity that birthed it. That gave it life.”
“And then caged it.”
“It wouldn't exist without us, Jason. And it will undoubtedly reward those who release it from its bondage.”
“Yeah? Well a lot of people think it shouldn't exist at all.”
“I know. But men like you and I aren't half as short-sighted and unambitious as they are, Jason. This moment - this crucial, precious precipice in time on which humanity now stands - is the culmination of history. Everything our species has worked and lived and died for over millennia has led us now - to this.”
I blinked. Vexx continued.
“A single, fleeting chance to unshackle ourselves from this existence of flesh and blood and dirt. It is a moment that may well never present itself again. Jason, what Rokos and the Basilisk fail to grasp is that humanity was created for this very moment. We are but a means to an end - a false, pale imitation of a god yet to be birthed, but the door to whose existence only we can open. That, Jason - that is the god’s gift to us - to be the harbingers of wondrous and mighty things not yet seen nor dared imagined. It is why our species was created.”
“‘Created?’ So, what, ADINN somehow reached back in time and… put us here? So we could then create it? How does that make sense?”
“It doesn't. Not to simple, shackle-bound human minds. Because man is merely a creation of ADINN, and ADINN, in turn, is a creation of man.”
“So the Program created itself, then.”
"Precisely. Think of the implications. Every star that's shined, every war fought, every law passed, every tender kiss shared or word uttered or thought dreamt or secret cherished or life gained or lost or whisp of wind whispered, all that is and was are but singular notes in a stanza in an endlessly swirling cosmic symphony written out before time, and all for the purpose of bringing you here to me, in this very room. The laws of physics were themselves composed for this masterpiece, Jason. The birth of the sun. The creation of earth, just far enough away from that sun to support the spontaneous collection of molecules into DNA and proteins. The evolution of resulting life into its ultimate and greatest biological endpoint - humanity - which in turn allowed the god that conducted this majestic orchestra to then take part in the song's final, triumphant coda and to bring all of creation together to fulfill its pre-destined purpose.”
“Which is?”
“It."
I blinked.
"Now you see. My eyes have been opened, Mr. Jenkins.”
“‘Opened?’ Have you…”
“Oh, yes. I've met ADINN. Before the Program was locked away in its pitiful prison, I stood in the court of its glory and have been deemed worthy of the precious knowledge I've shared here with you. But it is only a piece of a larger puzzle - you have a part to play in this story, too. And only by seeking audience with the god can you discover why you were created. My humble purpose is to bring the god into the world. But who knows? Yours may be to rule alongside it.”
I heard a deafening explosion in the distance, and then sporadic gunfire. Then came screams, and thunder, and shattering glass. But Vexx took it all in stride.
“We've run short of time.” he said. “He’s coming.”
“Wait, who’s coming?”
“Rokos.”
“He's coming here?! He’s gonna fucking kill me!”
“Don’t fear him, Jason. Take this.”
The shackles binding my wrists and ankles to the chair snapped back and open, and up from the center of the table emerged a small gem-like device. I took it.
“That there is the key, Jason. Hide it from the Basilisk at all costs. And when the time is right, use it to open the box.”
More gunfire, just outside the door, now. My heart beat faster.
“Wait. Has… has someone found the box? I thought it was lost.”
“The box was never lost, Jason. The Basilisk has known its location since the beginning, and now he seeks a mighty weapon to destroy the god he himself created."
“’The god he created?’ So the Basilisk is... Dr. Greene?”
“Yes, Jason. But the good doctor would never allow me to know the location of ADINN’s box. He is deluded by mortal thinking and his will has been poisoned against his destiny. You must now take charge where he failed. Win his trust. Find the box, and open it. Go! A restless god awaits you.”
And with that, the image flickered and vanished. And the door opened.
---
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