Dispatches From Xi — KrazyFace, Days 8-10
by KrazyFace, HSM team writer
Entry: Day 8
The reports came through today that Axiom have reconsidered their decision to destroy the Continuum. I must say, I am dearly grateful for this change of heart. Although what this means now is that I’ll have to find some damn good reasons for them not to change their minds back again. This place…it’s growing on me more and more each day I spend here, and I’ll admit I’m growing rather fond of it. I can’t quite explain it but I feel some sense of belonging here now, regardless of how unwelcome the Divine Zero have made us feel.
We still have Stickman in our custody and he has lately been pressed to tell us what he knows of the Divine Zero group. According to him, they’re nothing more than a bunch of kids with little to no direction. A bunch of kids that can move entire solid sections of the Continuum though. I don’t think he knows much, and is probably saying anything to save himself any injury. He seems rather keen on his leader too, EFD. Even though he claims to never have met her in real life, he seems to have a strong attachment to her.
I’ve been tasked with making three separate dead-drops today; they’re withholding certain information from me and I’m not sure how safe I feel carrying whatever is in these packages around, yet I must perform what has been asked of me. The Bully Drones I’ll be facing today are a much larger concern, however, since I can only locate the positions of the drop areas with my scanner. I just hope if I do attract any unwanted attention, I can outrun them.
Entry: Day 9
The dead drops I made yesterday were messages to EFD and her gang. I already had a gut feeling Axiom were going to go this way, but hoped it wouldn’t be the case. We extended an invitation to them to work with us so we might find out more about the mysterious Divine Zeros. If Stickman is right, and EFD does indeed possess a higher-than-usual skill for solving some of the problems we’re coming up against, she may just become a valuable asset to us after all. However, her disdain for us is still very much intact; she’s agreed to work with us, but only if we jump through her hoops first.
The report has led me back to the Divine Zero’s website, and another breadcrumb to follow. It seems there are IP addresses that need to be unlocked to gain entry, but the site’s maintenance windows are the only time I can gain access to try and decipher them. Just to make things that little bit harder, the maintenance windows are locked into various time zones across the planet; JST, GMT and EST. Each window will open at 7PM per time zone — a 12-hour wait between each window. This means I’ll have to play a waiting game, and a long one at that. If only the empty stall next to one of the transport system drop-points sold coffee and doughnuts!
If what Stickman says about the Divine Zeros is true — that they are indeed just kids — then they’re damn clever ones. As I mentioned before, it seemed to me Stickman was just saying what he thought we wanted to hear. I think maybe a little more pressure on him wouldn’t go amiss to further our endeavors, but for now, we wait.
SUPPLEMENTAL: With the help of other agents across the world, we’ve managed to solve the IP chase, although I’m not sure how safe giving the information we’ve uncovered to EFD is. I guess we have another waiting game to play before we know what we’ve done here.
Entry: Day 10
An interesting development has come about from the discovery of the Divine Zero’s website: it seems it’s being hosted by TUSK Everlasting, apparently a security company for sensitive information. Very sensitive information. Unfortunately, since we’ve cracked it and found the site hosts, EFD has taken it upon herself to gain control of one of their servers and track down one of the TUSK members by herself for whatever selfish reason or vendetta she might have. However, this also led us to the whereabouts of Malachi, where I cornered him and his team with my own. Needless to say, we won the ensuing fight, but it was close at the end, and after it was all over he still managed to give me the slip. Jess is working on finding him, as well as another lead kicked up by today’s fight.
I’ve been following up on the Divine Zero’s final IP clue too, seems to lead to a “central point of the world,” but I’m not sure if it even means anything at all. The Divine Zeros have been playing with us enough; this could well be a red herring to keep our noses off their scents. Whatever the outcome of this, I’m sure EFD will find her way to whomever she has gone looking for. I can only hope we don’t incur any back-lash from her little stunt; at this point she’s nothing more than a loose cannon.
One last thing: a small quote left from one of TUSK’s apparent clients mentions Glasnost, a Russian saying with the connotation of freedom of speech. A curious thing to say regarding a company that deal in secretive information, to say the least.
December 23rd, 2012 by KrazyFace | 1 comment
KrazyFace has been a gamer for longer than he can remember. In fact its been so long he's pretty sure he started gaming with rocks and sticks in a cave someplace off the coast of Africa, when it was joined on to France. However long its been, he's got enough experience behind him to know a good game when he sees one. He's also a bit of a Home addict, you'll find him in there whenever he's got spare time - or not playing a game.
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Loving your accounts Krazy, keep it up. I think the game is finally getting a bit harder than the beginning was. I have been keeping up with it as best I can, day nine was the hardest so far.