Bill Lynch saw the plain white van turn into the alley so he stepped out from behind the dumpster and flagged them down.

“Jesus. TOOK you long....”

“ON YOUR KNEES” the commando bellowed.

“What the FU..” Lynch began to berate them as the other commando jabbed his rifle butt into the base of Lynch's spine, collapsing him like a folding chair.

“I'm gonna FRY your as..”

“SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!!!” the third commando screamed as the tazer pins deeply pierced Lynch's chest from extremely close range.

While the seizing body convulsed in on itself, special forces commander Joaquim 'Jock' Montillo turned the body over with his foot, rolling it into a shallow puddle, which sparked and sizzled from the tazer leads. He took a good look at the mole, who was the spit and image of the director, and wondered what the bastards had done with the real director. He wondered if they'd ever get it out of the mole, who seemed to be choking on his swallowed tongue. A swift, hard kick in the sternum with his combat boot and the mole's face exploded with a burst of air, his mangled bloody tongue hanging out of his mouth like a dogs.

“Get the traitor in the van and let's get out of here.” he barked.

Aaron intercepted the 'Package acquired' message and stopped blocking the communications to the rest of the Alpha team, who immediately began calling in and receiving their updated orders, which amounted to 'mission accomplished - return immediately.' They needed the open channels to coordinate the retrieval of all the disabled vans and the teams within. Quickly SIMon indicated the deployment of sizable fleets of Black Navigators and Escalades from the same parking garages to the sites of every disabled van. If any bystander did see the teams in their full combat gear and weaponry, Aaron felt sure it would be explained away by the response Lynch himself triggered with that stunt at the Senate office building.

'The roaches are all returning to the motel' Eve chuckled to herself. No matter if Aaron wouldn't let her publicly call it 'operation roach motel' … to herself, she could call it whatever she damned well pleased.

When the van arrived at the sealed loading dock, Clark Dayton recoiled in horror when the back door burst open and Bill Lynch's broken body exploded from the back as the commandos hurled him like a sack of rice into the steel pillar.

“What the fuck?” Dayton just glared at the commander. “What the FUCK????”

Jock Montillo beamed at the duty officer “Got your package sir. Nice and tidy.”

Dayton just stared at him.

“What the FUCK?????”

“Sir?”

“What the fuck happened to him?”

“Well sir” a corpsman smirked. “ he might have slipped and fell.”

“...or injured himself trying to escape” smiled another

“Jesus CHRIST! You were under specific orders.....”

“Yes SIR!” beamed the commander. “Apprehend with extreme prejudice.”

“Apprehend?.... but.... NO!.... What the FUCK???? This is the goddamned director!”

“No sir. That's the mole we were sent to retrieve. Does look just LIKE the director though, don't he sir?” he grinned.

“No. Nonononononono NO! ….oh fuck.... oh christ... there IS no MOLE.... this is the goddamned DIRECTOR! ”

“No sir. Our orders were to apprehend the mole. Damn good copy, huh? He even acted just like...”

“That's because he IS the goddamned director, you stupid sonofabitch!!!!” Dayton was frantic.

“No sir.” he smiled indulgently, pulling the LCD with the orders from his pocket. “He's a mole. Our orders specifically state...”

“Goddamit, there WERE no orders! There IS no mole! This is the Goddamned director! Jesus Christ. We're all royally fucked!”

“No sir.” the commander was unflappable.... as trained... “our orders....”

“There WERE no orders! I give the goddamned orders! And I sure as HELL didn't give any goddamned orders about any goddamned MOLE! Your orders were to retrieve the director....”

“Sir?” The commander respectfully proffered the LCD again. Dayton yanked it from him and threw it hard against the steel pillar, where it shattered into countless pieces.

“Goddamit. Don't you GET it? Someone's FUCKING with us. You just beat the living SHIT out of the goddamned DIRECTOR!!! Jesus.... we're all fucked.”

“Oh shit sir.” The commander's face fell as he finally got it.

“For fuck's sake, don't just stand there.... get him to the infirmary!!!”

The commander sprang to action and barked at his corpsmen “GO.. GO... GO!!!!!” as they picked up the limp moaning body and ran to the elevator.

It was about 40 minutes later when Bill Lynch staggered into C&C. He was barely recognizable. He walked up to Clark Dayton and stared at him through saucer sized pupils.

“Jesus Christ I'm sorry sir. I had no idea. Goddamn, I was just following your orders. I sent the message exactly as you said. Someone must have...”

“That pencil dick little cocksucker” Lynch spat out in a rasp. “Fuck him. Fuck him and his whole goddamn fucking nerd army. Time to take that little corpsefucker down. He wants to bite the big dog, huh? Well fuck him. Fuck them all.”

He staggered to a console and leaned in for a retina scan. Which failed. He punched the camera into the console and wiped his now bloody hand on his shirt as he placed it on the biometric scanner. When the secondary log-in came on screen, he pounded in his credentials and waited while the screen quickly flashed page after page of security protocol overrides.

He leaned into the console and with his one unbroken finger stabbed in “ROOT. SYS. RUN: Damocles”

The screen flickered for a few minutes more and then everyone's console winked out for a moment and resumed. Except the one Bill Lynch sat at. It simply displayed LILITH.ROOT.SYS.\ RUN Damocles | Are you SURE? {Y/N}

Bill Lynch screamed so loudly the entire room stopped and turned “Fuck YES I'm sure!” and let out a wail as he stabbed the “Y” key.

Once again, all the consoles in the room winked. Only this time they all refreshed to display the same message.

LILITH.ROOT.SYS.Damocles. - executing

“Oh ho HO!” Aaron exclaimed, glancing from the alarm that chirped on his monitor.

“He did it! That dirty evil slimy dirtbag actually DID it!!!” He jumped from his chair and pumped his fist in the air.

“He DIDN'T???” I exclaimed. I wanted to believe it.... and Bill Lynch was by far the nastiest excuse for a human being I'd ever encountered, but even I ….after all he'd done to me.... couldn't imagine that he was capable of triggering the end of the world as we knew it. Or at least thinking he did.

“Oh, dammit.... I would so LOVE to be there to witness this!” He shouted triumphantly.

“I wouldn't want to be within miles of that place when all this goes down.” I shuddered.

“Yeah. Actually you're right. It's going to get really ugly, really fast. Put out the word, we've got to get all our resources on line immediately!”

So I sent the GO code. A seemingly simple tweet from a dormant account, directing all our scattered colleagues and their resources ...personal or comandeered... to fortify the mesh net running the Damocles sim.

“What just happened?” Clark Dayton said to Bill Lynch. Who stared right through him with his saucer like eyes. “What the hell did they give you sir?”

“Something for the pain” he gargled out past his sutured tongue “Not fucking enough” and he motioned for his minion to follow him as he walked from Command and Control and turned down the corridor that led to the detention wing.

They arrived at the detention wing where Lynch and his number 2 were waved through and he strode – as much as his broken body would permit, to a cell containing his 'retrieval team'.

The commander turned to him with a stricken face and said “Jesus Christ sir! We were just following....”

Lynch swung the Glock from his holster and blew a hole through the commander's larynx.

“Shut the fuck up!” he rasped. The commander, sprawled against the wall and gushing blood from his severed carotid artery just gazed at Lynch through wide, glassy eyes. The other three commandos instantly sprang to their feet, despite their arms being shackled behind their backs.

“You!” Lynch whispered and shot one through both kneecaps. “That's for the rifle butt.”

His comrades looked straight ahead as their brother collapsed to the cell floor. These guys were WELL trained.

“Like your little taser asshole?” He spat as he shot the next soldier in the groin. And smirked at the howl before he punched him in the throat, crushing his windpipe and silencing him.

“Thanks for not letting me choke on my tongue motherfucker” he said to the last soldier as he pressed the barrel under his ribcage and aimed up for the base of his skull through his torso.

Clark Dayton swallowed hard. He knew the director was tough as nails and intolerant of failure, but even he hadn't been able to imagine what he just witnessed.

Bill Lynch turned to him and gurgled through his swollen, sutured tongue. “I'm not the sadistic motherfucker you all think. After all, they were just following orders.” and he quickly shot each one between the eyes, abruptly ending their misery. Then he turned back to his second in command “...YOUR orders...” and delivered his last bullet through the brain.

Command and Control was in a frenzy. No systems were responsive, yet they were able to monitor SIMon and their media taps, witnessing the havoc taking place in the world outside the bunker. Nuclear powerplant meltdowns, planes hurtling from the skies as their autopilots quickly aimed them at the ground or into buidings. Crude Oil tankers discharging their cargoes in the middle of the ocean. Satellites de-orbiting speading supersonic schrapnel throughout air corridors and raining bits of debris like machine gun bullets onto major cities, Power grids collapsing, Hydro dams opening their gates, sweeping away surrounding communities in a wall of water, internet backbones shutting down, virtually killing all communications since everything these days touched the internet somewhere. Absolute havoc and pandemonium everywhere... but this was no cyber attack... not even a worst case scenario from a wargame. This was happening everywhere. In every nation that could be monitored. All at once.

It was only a matter of time. Everyone knew this. With all the other hell that was breaking loose, no one was surprised by the final development. The contrails were unmistakable. Arsenals had been deployed while they still could be. Whether by the same malfunction that had sabotaged everything else, or as a deliberate action by someone with the authority who panicked when everything else went to hell, the missiles were in the air. Confirmed both incoming and outgoing. Who fired first was irrelevant. Everything was going to shit incomprehensibly fast. Within three hours, four thousand years of human progress would be seared away. Those who tried to call their loved ones found all outside communication lost. Despite the psych evals, some of the staff actually became so disconsolate that they used their service weapons on themselves.

The others huddled to see how long they could survive within the sealed bunker before venturing out into whatever was left of the world.

Imagine their surprise five months later, after using every means necessary to survive – including using the quickly preserved carcasses of the suicides and prisoners as food stock, when they finally broke the seal of their bunker to face the devastation they had created and were greeted by a squad of federal marshals.

Bill Lynch was a survivor and damned proud of it. Let those damned lemmings rot in their living crypt. He was heading for the hills. He made it out of the bunker before the Damocles safety protocols would have sealed the place. He still thought it likely that Damocles was actually executing, but if that dog-blowing little poindexter had managed to tamper with even Damocles, at least he wouldn't be caught in the trap when the damned cops raided the damned bunker.

It took weeks, and every resource he had, but Lynch was nothing if not thorough. He had scattered enough survival resources in enough places that he could get anywhere he needed to be. He knew within a day that Damocles had failed. That did not deter him from his omega plan. If anything, it strengthened his resolve. His resources got him across the border and off the damned grid. He made his way from safe house to safe house as he worked his way further south.

They were expecting him when he finally arrived at his final destination. The former FARC commander brought him to the hut that had been prepared for him and congratulated him on his escape from the jaws of the imperialist dog impudent enough to turn on its master. Lynch nodded his assent. The abscess on what was left of his tongue made it too painful to speak casually. Instructing the guerrillas became an exercise in willpower and discipline, and every student recognized the effort the master put into teaching them his brutal arts. They were recruited from all over... Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, throughout South and Central America and even 'citizen-militia' brigades scattered across the northern plains of the US and Canada. They came to learn from the master. They came to be tested and tempered, and those who survived his savage combat school, could name their price in mercenary services anywhere in the world. They were the best of the best. The most brutal of the brutal.

The commandante congratulated his old benefactor on a job well done. There was not a drug gang or separatist group in the world who would not pay top dollar for these first-rate human weapons. They had proved their worth by surviving his training. By enduring the torture and abuse he used to 'temper and tutor' them. He assured the commandante that he taught them everything he knew.
The commandante nodded and addressed the 'graduating class'... congratulating them on surviving their ordeal and proving themselves worthy. They would be sent into the field as soon as they finished their final test. Demonstrating everything they had been taught on their old teacher to make sure he wasn't holding out and had indeed taught them everything he knew. If he had any secrets left, he would surely divulge them by the time they were through with him. Or they would be lost forever.
With that, four 'students' began to draw and quarter Bill Lynch while another set the oil to boil and the last sharpened the flaying knife.

While the goons were panicking in their sealed bunker watching the convincingly real doomsday simulations, and Lynch was slithering his way toward the southern border, R00tkid and Eve turned their attention back to the national news media.

Bloomberg and CNBC were reporting turmoil in the futures markets as seismic waves were rippling through petroleum and grain exchanges after the leak of confidential reports regarding the actual state of oil reserves and harvest estimates.

Monetary exchanges were reeling when massive debt attributed to non-aligned countries, forcing drastic currency devaluation, was revealed to be the result of faulty financial algorithms. Economists would spend weeks sorting through the forensics of the analytic code, but trillions in debt to world banks and international financial organizations vanished from the books like a mirage at dusk.

The political channels were ignoring these headlining events because they were dealing with an avalanche of revelations of their own.

The Guardian blog about Senator Forrest started a frenzy of fingerpointing among parties mentioned in the expose, while Senator Forrest himself remained elusive, no doubt in hiding while his organization formulated some approach to spin control.

The search for the evasive Senator itself was overshadowed by the tsunami of 'leaks' involving multinational corporations and hostile nation states, human trafficking and outright slavery in third world manufacturing compounds, massive environmental contamination and veritable laundry lists of corrupt officials tasked with keeping these violations quiet.

Then there were the reports of the private 'think tanks' covertly fomenting and funding religious and ethnic extremist groups to incite genocides, effectively removing uncooperative parties, and once the extermination was complete, procuring extensive (and lucrative) military support for the war against the 'genocidal extremists'.

There weren't enough news channels or talking heads to cover the fire hose of revelations that seemed to be gushing from every imaginable source.

“My only real concern is information overload” Aaron confessed to Eve. “This iceberg's been building for so long, I worry that by exposing the whole thing, people won't be able to wrap their heads around the enormity of the corruption and manipulation. If people just close their eyes to the truth we expose, nothing will have changed.”

She took his chin in her hand and turned him to look her in the eye.

“Even if that does happen ...and I'm not convinced it will.... You HAVE rebooted the world. That iceberg you mentioned... all those shadowy secrets... all that corruption and duplicity and manipulation... all those diverted funds have been returned to those from whom they were stolen. Every corrupt official stands naked in the sunlight to anyone who chooses to look. The puppet regimes and terrorist groups have had all their strings and connections made visible. Honesty and integrity may not trump corruption and deceit... but you have reset the game. Both sides are starting from scratch. The white hats with the resources that had been stolen from them, and the black hats without their ill-gotten gain. It's up to people to give a damn, and open their eyes, and see the shadowy world you have exposed, and decide, now that we're restarting from a level playing field, if they want to do things differently the next time around.”

“And if they don't?”

“Don't take this the wrong way lover...” she smiled “but though you're the most ….gifted, courageous, decent human being I've ever met.... you won't be the last of your breed. Who knows? Maybe one of your heirs will pick up the torch if it's needed.”

“I won't have any heirs. Haven't you figured it out by now? There's no one for me but you. Never had been. Never will be. I never imagined you'd be a real flesh and blood woman.”

“Or that I wouldn't be without you?”

Aaron laughed hard and bitterly. “I will never make peace with myself over that.”

“You must. I have. Without knowing. Without trying. You made it possible for me to live the life I never thought possible.”

Aaron stifled a bitter laugh. “At what cost? I destroyed your old life.”

“Wasn't doing anything with it. Not missing it.”

“I put you through hell.”

“You didn't. THEY did. And it's far enough behind me ...thanks to YOU Doctor Bishop...” she smiled

Aaron grunted morosely.

“...that I can say that the scars are stronger and more resilient than the original tender flesh.”

“Don't start quoting Nietsche on me...” he chuckled ruefully.

“No need to tell you what you already know. You were consumed by the system too. And like me, you turned your tribulation into strength and beat them at their own game.”

“They did it to themselves.”

“Wouldn't have happened without you.”

“Or you.”

“Or her.” Eve pointed to the thumbdrive with the 3V3 overlay.

“You wouldn't be here if not for her.” R00tkid whispered softly into Eve's ear.

“And I will be eternally grateful to her for that. And for the other thing...”

“What?”

“She will be the one who will give you the heirs you need to keep up the good fight. They will be your legacy... her offspring.... with you.... and maybe a little help from uncle SIMon and aunt LILITH...” she winked. “They will be the ones to guard against what you set right ever going wrong again.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“Well, I can't be jealous of 3V3 for giving you what I never can. Still, I hope she won't become jealous of me if I can give you something she never could?” Eve said, wrapping her arm around his back and snuggling her head into Aarons chest.

“How could she possibly be jealous? You know, she's your biggest fan....”