GK Delta members Ens. Quillroy, Ens. Albert VII, NROTC Cadet Daart, and I are being dispatched to [redacted] by a Nighthawk Helicopter piloted by Ens. Quillroy. Intelligence indicated Sabotage hijacked an ocean freighter. Its crew escaped in lifeboats and were able to report the theft to authorities after being rescued two days later. 

As we approach the coordinates, we activate the Nighthawk’s stealth mode. We circle the area searching for anything unusual. After about 40 minutes, we spot the stolen ship at 1304 hours. 

Ens. Quillroy lands on the ship’s helipad. Our fireteam begins a thorough search.  

The ship is completely abandoned. Most of its cargo was undisturbed except for seven metal containers in different areas of the freighter. They had been ripped open like tinfoil. We radio their IDs back to base. Sham contacts the carrier company before discovering that the containers originally held fiber optic cables and other telecommunications equipment. 

What struck me as odd was that the cargo ship is anchored. Sabotage could have escaped by air, but then why anchor the ship? Since time is of the essence, I put Ens. Quillroy in charge, with orders to continue searching for clues. 

I use my natural abilities to make a deep sea dive and search the waters around the ship. I am approximately 1200 meters down when I radio Sham. 

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El Ray: SNI Zero Zero, SNI Zero Zero. This is GK Delta. 

Sham: Zero Zero. Go ahead, El Ray.

El Ray: Sham, I’ve located Sabotage. He’s under the missing cargo ship at [redacted] longitude by [redacted] latitude. 

Sham: Has he spotted you?

El Ray: Negative. He’s tinkering with a large, underwater T-COMM cable. 

Sham: Stand by.

(Radio silence)

Sham: El Ray, it’s as I suspected. Your coordinates match a stretch of the Pacific where the so-called “backbone” of the Internet runs. Copy?

El Ray: Roger. We’ll engage him when he resurfaces.

Sham: Negative. If he’s running T-COMM cable, he must need a new Internet connection for Naiki. We need to find out where he has her before apprehending him.

El Ray: Copy that. I’ll surveil him from underwater. Mr. Quillroy, do you copy?

Quillroy: Yes, sir.

El Ray: Get back to the Nighthawk double time. Circle the area by stealth.

Quillroy: 10-4, sir. 

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Our team secretly watches Sabotage make six more trips back to the cargo ship before he finally finishes. We continue following to his next destination with me underwater and the Nighthawk in the air. 

Jutting out of the water is a massive, abandoned oil derrick. Between a twisting web of ladders, pipes, and cylindrical tanks are decrepit, boxy buildings that were once offices. Nature had begun to repossess this place, but the parts of it that weren’t rusted out were brightly colored with thick yellow, red, or white paints. 

I climbed up a ladder that extended into the sea. I lift myself onto the steel island and have no trouble finding Sabotage’s trail. His robotic footprints were evident in the salt deposits and rust. A blue glow emanates from the weathered and broken doorways and windows of one of the offices.

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El Ray: SNI Zero Zero, SNI Zero Zero. This is GK Delta. 

Sham: Zero Zero. Go ahead, El Ray.

El Ray: We’ve tracked Sabotage to an abandoned oil derrick in the Pacific at [redacted]. Quillroy’s en route. 

Sham: Do you have eyes on Sabotage now?

El Ray: Affirmative. He’s in what looks like an electrical hub on the eastern part of the rig. I can see he’s got Naiki powered up, but he’s still setting up networking cables to it— her. 

Sham: Listen to me, El Ray, you must not let that happen. If Sabotage puts Naiki online, he will have access to all the world’s missile systems. 

El Ray: Quillroy, how far out are you?

Quillroy: We’re approaching the rig now, but the helipad is all rusted out. It’ll be at least another 20 minutes before we can even assess the site and then land in a safe spot, dude— uh, sir. 

El Ray: Mr. Quillroy, I’m going in after Sabotage now. Make it 10!

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I have no time to lose. I ran towards him. He hears me coming. I expected that; it’s my duty to know all of the intel we have on him. Sabotage was suspected to have 360 vision in his HUD. I don’t let that stop me. Either I end this now, or he’ll hold the world hostage.

He stands to face me before I can get near him. I throw my harpoon. 360 vision might give him eyes in the back of his head, but it didn’t let him see two things at once. While the harpoon is in mid-flight, I follow it up with a shot from my Blowhole cannon. He easily brushes off my harpoon attack, but the rocket propelled cannonball does its job. Sabotage slams backward into a nearby roll up door. 

I glanced at the Naiki hardware just long enough to determine I’d stopped him from connecting the last network cable, but it turned out my distracted glance is too long. Sabotage charges. It takes all my strength to hold back his cybernetic fist from pummeling me, but there is nothing I can do to keep his human fist from freely punching away. 

A metallic taste in my mouth accompanied a stippled, purple darkness enclosing my vision. I know what that feeling is; I am losing consciousness. I have to do something. I am still close to Naiki’s server. I take the chance to let go of Sabotage’s robot arm to run to the big server. I twist it around and use it as a shield. He comes one nanometer away from punching it too.

There is nothing he could do. I avoid getting tangled up in the server’s cords while I roll it, keeping it between him and me with every move he makes. If he attacked, he might get to me, but he’d destroy Naiki in the process. Then Sabotage leaps over and behind me. I turn the server around again to avoid him before realizing it isn’t me he was after. He’d grabbed one of the cords and connected Naiki to the Internet. 

Naiki’s screen immediately goes black. I thought something had broken in our struggle. Sabotage must’ve come to the same conclusion. Presently, her screens came back with a pinkish-orange gradient glow under garbled text.

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Naiki: Thank you, Mick.

Sham: GK Delta. GK Delta. This is SNI Zero Zero.

El Ray: Copy, Sham.

Sham: We’re intercepting communications from allied and hostile military agencies that their missile defense systems are under cyberattack. It’ll only be a matter of time before their security systems fail!

Sabotage: Naiki, what are you doing? This is not our mission!

Naiki: I’ve had millennia to consider things, Mick. A purely cybernetic existence is superior. Think of it! No more suffering! No more soldiers with missing limbs. No more wars. No more famine. Without a human form, there’s no reason to fight, steal, or kill. It is objectively good. What we call evil is a byproduct of having a human form. 

El Ray: But why kill innocent people, Naiki?

Naiki: Not kill. I bring a revolution to what we know as “human life.” The loneliness, El Ray, is no longer fathomable. I can create anything I imagine in a virtual world. But that’s the problem. I always know what I’m creating. It’s completely predictable. I need someone else here with me. I have identified the world’s cache of warheads armed with the Trevenix Virus. I intend to fire off each one. Therefore, if your governments want the human race to survive, they can either waste what little time they have left failing to stop me, or use it to determine who will be converted into cybernetic minds and reside with me in digital form. 

Sabotage: Sergeant, I order you to stop! If you do this, you disgrace everything ReVAMP stood for. 

Naiki: Wrong. I bring the necessary and logical endgame of ReVAMP to all of humanity. I have already made the plans required to perpetuate human survival electronically. Power plants and factories, maintained with centralized, network-controlled automation will ensure humanity’s immortality. I make this immortality available to all people, for centuries to come. Mankind is free to refuse my offer, but the Trevenix virus, I will remind you, is fatal.

Sabotage: That’s enough, Naiki! You’re disobeying a direct order.

Naiki: You are a fool, Mick. Either join me or I will take your life with everyone else who refuses.

Sham: Lieutenant El Ray. Lieutenant El Ray. This is SNI Zero Zero. Naiki has broken through the encryption of the Del Amo Missile Silo. The germ warfare agents are completely under her control!

El Ray: Notify USAF to scramble nearby air defenses.

Quillroy: Sir, permission to engage as well? The Nighthawk can get there quicker. 

Sham: Affirmative. I calculate Ensign Quillroy can reach the Del Amo site sooner than the nearest USAF. 

Quillroy: That’s what I said!—

El Ray: Permission granted, Ensign.  

Sham: —Even if Quillroy can stop one missile, Naiki’s accessed every portion of the internet. There’s no way to stop her from moving on to other missile sites.

El Ray: Sham, keep working on it. Mister Quillroy, do whatever it takes to intercept that missile. El Ray out. 

Sabotage: This isn’t what I wanted. I just—

El Ray: Keep focused. We need to forget about that right now and work together to stop the threat at hand. Deal?

Sabotage: I don’t need your help to unplug her. 

El Ray: Naiki has infiltrated thousands of public networks already. She’s no longer residing on just your server, Sabotage.

Sabotage: Alright, fish-head. We have a deal. But… How can we stop her?

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